Halloween Skull and Dagger Cake
This Halloween Skull and Dagger Cake makes a fun, spooky centerpiece for any Halloween party.
It’s bold, dramatic, and guaranteed to turn heads. And yes – it doubles as dessert, if your guests dare to take a bite.
Meet Yorick. He’s my fun Halloween project and here’s how he and his name came about…
Why did I name him Yorick?
We have a lot of skull and skeleton Halloween decorations and everyone with a skull is called Yorick. After the Shakespeare play Hamlet as Hamlet himself is holding up a skull and recites:
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy – Shakespeare
A friend of mine told me she was having a Halloween party and needed something as a great centerpiece and asked if I had any ideas. I thought of cake, because I was thinking of making a fun cake for Halloween, just to exercise my creativity. If you’ve seen in the past, I like to make something fun like this Halloween brownie graveyard.
After looking around for cake pan ideas for this Halloween Skull and Dagger Cake. I came across this amazing pan from Wilton. That is a skull that is baked in 2 cake halves, then joined together with frosting and decorated with fondant. And so Yorick was born.
The cake is made from a box mix. I don’t typically make box cakes, but for this project it’s more about the finished item and decoration than the actual cake . Making the cake is the easy part. The front and the back of the skull are 2 cake molds they are then stuck together with frosting.
The fondant is a perfect shade of ivory and that is rolled out to a large sheet and placed over the cake. Fondant is easy to shape with your hands and you just press it into the eye sockets, nose and mouth. The excess fondant is gathered to the back of the skull then smoothed out and slightly tucked under then trimmed.
How to cover the Halloween Skull and Dagger Cake with fondant
The picture below is a close-up of the back where you can see all the excess fondant came together in folds. Just smooth the folds out, trim and tuck under. If you get a hole, like I did in a few places just take a little fondant and smooth it over the hole.
Next came the painting. Wilton make cake paint so I was able to mix red, yellow, blue and green to achieve a dark grey to create the shading of the eyes, nose and mouth, then used white to highlight the teeth.
The dagger is an inexpensive real knife that I bought from Amazon. I was skeptical that the cake would hold the weight of it and it would fall out, but it went in quite snuggly and stayed. The blood is red gel frosting and that is it! Yorick is complete.
Halloween Skull & Dagger Cake
Ingredients
- 1 yellow box cake mix, made per instructions
- 2 pounds fondant, antique white
- frosting
- Wilton cake paint
- 1 dagger
- 1 tube red gel frosting
Instructions
- Make the cake according to box directions and bake in a skull cake pan.
- Allow the cake to cool completely then join the 2 halves together with frosting. Set into a cake stand.
- Roll out the fondant until thin (not too thin or it will tear). Roll the fondant over a rolling pin to lift onto the cake and smooth. Trim excess.
- Use the cake paint to create shade in the eyes, nose and mouth.
- Insert dagger into top of skull and drizzle red gel frosting.
I found your cake on Google and this is just what I was looking to make for Halloween. I found the cake pan on Wiltons website. Can I contact you if I have any questions when I make it? Thanks for an amazing cake.
I’m so happy Irma, thank you. I’m here if you need me, I’ve sent you my email address.
That skull looks scary. Will be a hit for Halloween party