Fun and Easy Halloween Sheet Cake Ideas, Part 2

 

In the last section, we discussed how to make a fast and easy Tombstone cake. Now we are going to look at how to create one or more attractive pumpkin cakes to add to your holiday buffet spread or potluck.

Your round pans will be perfect for making a pumpkin face. You can then use the wedges left over from the tombstone cake to make stems for two pumpkin cakes by frosting them green and positioning them over the round cakes.  (If you have not made a tombstone cake already, not to worry. We will tell you what to do when it comes time to decorate and assemble the cake.)

For the pumpkin faces, once your round layer cakes are completely cool, you will be ready to frost. First dye your white frosting orange, or use ready-made orange frosting.  (We recommend trying to make your own natural food colorings rather than buying commercial products. There are many recipes online that can help.)

If you need to create a stem, cut off about an inch of one side of the cake and then cut it in half or into a stem shape and position it on top of the cake.  Frost it green and set aside until it is time to assemble the cake.

Frost the whole cake ‘face’ with your orange frosting, and then decide how you wish to create the features of the pumpkin face.

There are a number of options for creating the faces. Again, if you are a green mom, you might want to create these as naturally as possible. If you are calorie or sugar conscious, this will also help you select the right choice for your whole family and any guests you might be serving cake.

You can draw eyes, nose and mouth with frosting gel or make some very dark black frosting with red and blue drops of color and create triangles for the eyes and nose and some jagged ‘teeth’ for the mouth.

You can also make the facial features using a number of pieces of candy corn. Make two triangles pointing downwards for the eyes and one triangle pointing upwards for the nose by positioning the candy corn as needed.   The mouth can be as jagged and snaggle-toothed as you like, positioned in the center of the cake under the nose.

You can add the lines of the pumpkin down the cake in slightly curved lines parallel to each other like parentheses, starting on either side of the face, with the left-hand-side lines curving out to the left, and the right-hand side line curving out towards the right like this: ((*^*))

You can also use icing gel, sprinkles and so on to fill in the features. Don’t forget to color green the stems of the ‘pumpkins’ (your leftover cake wedges from the tombstone cake) using some green frosting or green sprinkles or colored green sugar.

These are quick and easy cake ideas that will feed a large number of people for gathering at a school, church hall or other community group . An attractive cake also works very well as the centerpiece for a Halloween buffet table.  Best of all, you can use any recipe you like, so you can be sure of how wholesome the ingredients are. You can even make your own buttercream frosting or a festive-colored cake glaze using natural ingredients, without a lot of fat and sugar or food coloring, in order to avoid gaining weight or feeding your family and friends too many unhealthy items.

If you are really in a hurry, you can resort to boxed mixes, pre-prepared frosting, and food color, but remember that one drop of color can go a long way and use it sparingly.

If you make a mistake frosting your cake, just scoop it off and start again.  If the worst comes to the worst, you can even cut off one part of the cake and start again or use it for cake pops and bake another one.

And no matter what it looks like, there is no such thing as a bad cake as long as you follow instructions for the recipe you are using or the mix you are making.  Don’t burn your cake/s, time everything carefully, and test it for doneness according to the package instructions.

 

Note to beginner bakers:

Your oven may vary in terms of temperature, so always check for doneness about 5 minutes before the lowest recommended time. For example, if it says Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, check its progress at the end of 25 minutes. Our oven is so good that if it says 350 for 30 minutes, it will be done to perfection in 30 minutes. 35 would be overdone.

We once had an oven that was 100 degrees cooler than it should have been and one that was 75 degrees hotter than it should have been. If you want to save a lot of money and calories by learning to make and decorate cakes yourself, it is a fun hobby the whole family will love, but you might want to invest in an inexpensive oven thermometer just to check your oven so all your cakes will come out great.

 

Further Reading:

Halloween Magic Even on a Budget: Halloween Activities, Costumes, Crafts and Recipes

Fast, Fun and Frugal Halloween: A Guide to Great Halloween Costumes, Recipes, Activities and Decorations

How to Save Money This Holiday Season

How to Create Great Holiday Decorations for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween and More

How To Create A Loving Thanksgiving Celebration for the Whole Family

Planning for and Preparing a Stress-Free Thanksgiving At Home

Easy Thanksgiving Recipes

A Vegetarian Christmas Season

Easy Christmas Recipes

Planning For and Preparing a Stress-Free Christmas At Home

Fast and Fun Christmas Recipes

Great Christmas Candy Recipes

How to Create a Loving Christmas Celebration for the Whole Family

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Fun and Easy Halloween Sheet Cake Ideas, Part 1

There are many way to make a homemade sheet cake into an attractive and festive one for Halloween. The first thing to consider is the shapes and size of the pans you have. Most of us will own the usual 9” x 13” baking pan and a couple of round cake pans to make a layer cake.

The next thing to consider is how many people you will need to feed  if you are having a party, or are contributing to a Halloween potluck or buffet.

In this series of articles, we will teach you how to make a fast and easy Tombstone Cake and a Pumpkin Cake.

 

Tombstone Cake

A 9” x 13” sized cake can serve at least 12 people, more if you cut into smaller slices rather than squares or rectangles. Make a tombstone cake by positioning the cake on a board that you can use to transport the cake.  Hold it so that the shorter edge of the cake is nearest you. With a sharp knife, cut off the top left corner of the cake, working from the center downward in a curve, to create the first curved edge of the top of the tombstone. Repeat with the right corner. Save the cake wedges for more yummy treats later.

Using pure white frosting, frost the cake. Using icing gel in black or blue, write on your tombstone. You can put the initials R.I.P for Rest in Peace to make it look like a gravestone. Or you can write a Halloween sentiment like “Happy Halloween” in ‘spooky’ looking or spidery letters. You can also add a cobweb to one corner of the tombstone, on the top or bottom, using the icing gel, complete with a small spider if you really want to get into the ‘spirit’ of Halloween.

You can also use some of the gel to outline fingers and nails for a hand coming up out of the grave on the bottom of the tombstone cake.  Coconut dyed green and some chocolate sprinkles will work well as ‘grass’ and ‘dirt’ for the bottom edge of the tombstone to add to the spooky effect of the hand coming out of the ground.

You can make the hand a little pink or even green with one drop of food coloring added to the white frosting. Create the frosting fingers by placing them in your desired area. Outline them with the gel. You can aim for a scary effect or a funny one. You might want to try the new Neon food colors from McCormick for a ghastly glow in the dark green. Just use one drop to start with. You can always add more if you have to, but it is impossible to remove it if your color ends up too dark.

In the next section of this article, we will look at how to make a fast and easy pumpkin face  cake.

Further Reading:

Halloween Magic Even on a Budget: Halloween Activities, Costumes, Crafts and Recipes

Fast, Fun and Frugal Halloween: A Guide to Great Halloween Costumes, Recipes, Activities and Decorations

How to Save Money This Holiday Season

How to Create Great Holiday Decorations for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween and More

How To Create A Loving Thanksgiving Celebration for the Whole Family

Planning for and Preparing a Stress-Free Thanksgiving At Home

Easy Thanksgiving Recipes

A Vegetarian Christmas Season

Easy Christmas Recipes

Planning For and Preparing a Stress-Free Christmas At Home

Fast and Fun Christmas Recipes

Great Christmas Candy Recipes

How to Create a Loving Christmas Celebration for the Whole Family

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How to Save on Baby Gifts Part 5

Time

You can also give the gift of time in a number of ways,  If you live close to the couple or have some free time and want to develop a close relationship with the baby, you can offer to babysit so that couples can have a date night—studies have shown that this plays a significant part in avoiding drifting apart after baby is born.

You can also volunteer to help sign up the couple for free giveaways of coupons, baby products and more. You can offer to run errands for mom or keep an eye on the baby while she gets out of the house to do her essential chores without carting the infant all over the place. (Parents should NEVER ever leave a baby alone in a car.)

Buying a baby gift can be expensive if you are not careful, and a waste of time, money and effort if you buy the wrong thing that they will really have no use for. When in doubt, opt for a baby gift basket you can put together yourself. It will look impressive, but only you have to know what great bargains you got.

Another consideration when choosing items is to consider how ‘green’ both you and the new parents are in terms of how much you want to consume and how much of an impact it will have on the Earth. Many moms are getting back to basics and using cloth diapers, breast feeding, and avoiding using formula because of the increasing rate of food allergies amongst children and the amount of waste that it generates. Green parents are also turning to natural, sustainable fabrics like cotton  and avoiding scratchy synthetics that stain easily.

One final consideration when choosing the gift is the culture of a couple. Some cultures feel it is bad luck to buy anything for the baby until it is safely born. For other cultures, they want things to be as natural as possible and there are ‘benchmarks’ for the baby that are marked with special occasions. For Christians, for example, the baptism or christening is important to some sects, while others believe in adult baptism. When in doubt, ask, to make sure that couples are getting something they really need or want, which will give you even more value for your baby gift budget.

 

FURTHER READING
How to Slash Costs and Save Money on Everyday Expenses

How to Use the Internet to Save Money

Going Green for New Moms: A Beginner’s Guide to Raising Your Baby in an Eco-Friendly Way

Green Mother’s Guide: How to Raise a Child More Greenly and Naturally

The New Green Family Guide: A Beginner’s Guide to Going Green as a Family

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How to Save on Baby Gifts Part 4

Keepsake Gifts

Keepsake gifts can include personalized items which mark the baby’s birthday in some way, such as a sterling silver engraved rattle, picture frame, or a special baby album or scrapbook. If you are the creative type, ask for photos of the baby/digital photos (couples will usually put together a digital album these days to share with everyone) and print out the best photos on high-quality photo paper on a good printer. Then use your scrapbooking talents to create a book full of memories. You can also choose from a range of pre-made baby books and add the photos. Many baby books will have a theme like baby’s first year, a sports theme, Hello Kitty and so on, so choose one you think will suit the tastes of the parents.

Money

A gift card or gift certificate can help contribute towards all of the items a newborn  will require. Cash in a card is also greatly appreciated, even if it seems unimaginative. We have heard several complaints recently about couples barely able to make ends meet because they had no idea how expensive things were and how fast they burned through them.

Continued in Part 5

FURTHER READING:

How to Slash Costs and Save Money on Everyday Expenses

How to Use the Internet to Save Money

Going Green for New Moms: A Beginner’s Guide to Raising Your Baby in an Eco-Friendly Way

Green Mother’s Guide: How to Raise a Child More Greenly and Naturally

The New Green Family Guide: A Beginner’s Guide to Going Green as a Family

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How to Save on Baby Gifts Part 3

Toys and Books

Stuffed animals and dolls are a welcome gift for any newborn. A classic set of children’s books also makes an excellent gift. A child’s first Bible might also be appropriate depending on the religious orientation of the family and the gift giver’s relationship with the newborn’s parents.

 

Fun colorful baby bath books or sets of books in a handy travel box can help an infant become interested in books at an early age. Avoid so-called educational DVDs. TV has been proven to be just a distraction to infants that does not teach them anything, and in fact can hinder their progress in learning how to interact with people through speaking and listening because the television does not provide ‘emotional cues’ or prompts to help baby learn how to talk.

Continued in Part 4

FURTHER READING
How to Slash Costs and Save Money on Everyday Expenses

How to Use the Internet to Save Money

Going Green for New Moms: A Beginner’s Guide to Raising Your Baby in an Eco-Friendly Way

Green Mother’s Guide: How to Raise a Child More Greenly and Naturally

The New Green Family Guide: A Beginner’s Guide to Going Green as a Family

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