Halloween Cake Pops – A Beautiful Mess

When it comes to Halloween, there are lots of treats to choose from but Halloween cake pops are a great way to serve fun bits of cake on sticks decorated for the occasion. We’ll show you three ideas for how to make an easy eyeball cake pop, a bat cake pop, and a mummy cake pop just by adding few fun touches for your next Halloween party.

You could also make these Oreo Cake Pops for a no-bake option! And whether it’s food, desserts, costumes, or decoration ideas you need, we’ve got tons of ideas to make this Halloween special!

Looking for more Halloween treats? Check out:

Want an easy no-bake “cake pop” idea? Try using large marshmallows on a stick and get to the decorating right away!

Tips for Making Cake Pops:

• Add your icing to your cake crumble in small quantities so you just get the point of having enough for it to stick together.
• Use a small cookie scoop to scoop cake mixture so you get even portions for each cake pop.
• Make sure your cake balls are well chilled before coating.
• Have your decorations nearby and prepped to go so you can attach them while the chocolate is still melted.
• You can use a tall glass to pour your melted chocolate in so you have a little dunk tank to fully submerge your cake pop into.
• Want colored cake pops? Add a little gel food coloring when you smush together your cake and icing for a fun color surprise!
• Use orange candy melts to create a pumpkin cake pop, pipe on a face with black icing and place a chocolate chip upside down on top for the stem.
• Try using a pumpkin spice cake mix with cream cheese frosting for extra fall flavor!

What You Need to Make Cake Pops:

Cake mix: For this cake pop recipe, you can use any flavor of boxed cake mix: chocolate, vanilla, red velvet, yellow, etc. Be sure to check your cake mix to ensure you have whatever other cake ingredients the mix recommends for baking (eggs, oil, etc.).

Can of frosting: You will also need one container of store-bought frosting. I like to use anything with a simple texture like vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry.

Cake pop sticks: While it’s most common to use sticks like this, you can also use lollipop sticks, forks, or edible items like pretzel rods!

Candy melts: These melting wafers are the easiest way to get that chocolate coating as they melt easily and come in lots of color options.

Microwave or Double Boiler: You can melt candy melts in the microwave, but you can also use a double boiler to do it on the stove top or a chocolate melter like this one.

Edible decorations: For these Halloween cake pops you’ll want candy eyeballs for the mummy and bat, Oreo-type cookies for the bat wings, chocolate chips for the bat ears, green candy melts or a large candy eye for the eyeball and an edible marker to draw on the red veins. Feel free to decorate with sprinkles or other edible candies!

How to Make Halloween Cake Pops:

1. Bake the cake: Bake your cake according to the package instructions and allow to fully cool in the pan.

2. Add the frosting and mix: Spoon the baked cake into a large mixing bowl and break it up with your hands so it resembles large crumbs. Add 2/3 of the container of frosting. Using the full container makes the cake pops a bit too soft and harder to work with once we dip them in chocolate. But, this is how you get cake pops to stick together—with frosting. Use clean hands to mix together the frosting and cake. The cake pop batter is going to be pretty soft, but moldable.

3. Roll cake balls: Form your cake pop batter into small balls (about 3-4 tablespoons each). You don’t want them to be too big, just so they easily fit in the palm of your hand.

Once you have formed all your pops (a standard size cake will make around 35-40 cake pops), put them in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours or the freezer for 30 minutes.

4. Melt your candy melts: Melt candy melts in the microwave in 30-second increments on half power. You could also use a double boiler to do it on the stove top or a chocolate melter like this one. If you need to thin your candy melts, you can stir in a teaspoon of canola or vegetable oil once melted and can reheat the chocolate for 15 seconds at a time to remelt if it starts to set up at any point.

5. Attach the cake pop stick: First, put your stick into the melted chocolate and push the stick 2/3 through a cold cake pop. The melted chocolate will act like a glue to keep the cake pop attached to the stick.

6. Dip the cake pop: Dip the attached cake pop into the melted chocolate and allow any excess chocolate to drip off the pop. Gently tap the cake pop stick on the side of your bowl to also shake off extra chocolate. Then, add any extra decorations and store the cake pop upright in a cake pop holder or styrofoam block while it sets (unless you don’t mind a flat bottomed cake pop then you can let them lay on wax or parchment paper).

You can keep them upright in a number of ways like sticking them into a container that is filled with granulated white sugar or rice or you can stick them into a block of styrofoam.

How to make a mummy Halloween cake pop:

• Follow directions above to make a general cake pop and dip the cake pop into white candy melts.
• Add two candy eyes and let the chocolate set.
• Using more melted white chocolate, either use a piping bag (or a ziplock baggie with a bit of the corner tip cut off) or a spoon to drizzle lines of chocolate over the mummy face to make the wrapping effect (set cake pop on wax paper to catch excess icing).
• Allow the drizzled chocolate to set and your mummies are ready!

How to make a bat Halloween cake pop:

• Follow directions above to make a general cake pop and dip the cake pop into black or brown chocolate.
• Add two candy eyes, half an Oreo or chocolate cookie into each side for the wings, two chocolate chips on top for ears, and let the chocolate set.

TIP: When adding the bat wings, have your cake pop standing up in a stand or jar of rice/sugar to hold it upright and insert the wings on both sides at the same time. Just go in far enough to stick but not so far that you split your cake pop in half.

• Once the chocolate is set, your bats are ready to eat!

How to make an eyeball Halloween cake pop:

• Follow directions above to make a general cake pop and dip the cake pop into white chocolate.
• Add a green candy melts or a large candy eye to the eyeball and let the chocolate set. If you do the candy melt, you can add some melted black chocolate to a ziplock bag, cut the corner, and add a drop of black for the pupil or you can draw it on with a black food marker.
• Allow the cake pop to dry and then draw on red veins with a food marker and you’re ready to serve!

Looking for more cake pop tips? Check out our How To Make Cake Pops for more!

How cute are those?! We love a good Halloween treat that is a little spooky but mostly fun. You can also use a little food dye in vanilla cake to make the inside cake pop batter a fun Halloween color for an extra surprise when you bite inside. You could even add some of these to a “Boo bag” to boo your neighbors and friends or try our Birthday Cake Pops for your next party. Happy baking!

Looking for other cake pop ideas? Check out: