Spooky Halloween Cake Topper

Take your Halloween cake to the next level with this spooky Halloween cake topper and ring. If you are like me, and baking intimidates you, grab a cake at your local bakery and add some flair with this DIY haunted house cake decor, made completely from paper! Your friends and party guests will be impressed with this elaborate cake design that is actually super easy to create!

So here are a few things you may not know about me. I love throwing parties. And I’m obsessed with Halloween. So why is it that I haven’t even hosted a Halloween party at my house? I think one of the things that intimidates me most about hosting adult parties is the pressure I feel to create really amazing food and desserts. I can decorate and come up with fun games like nobody’s business, but baking is a total weakness of mine. I’ve always loved elaborate cake designs, but when it comes to my own kids’ birthdays and holidays, I usually end up just serving a store-bought boring cake. Boo. This is what brought on the idea to create a decorative element that could fit outside of any standard circle cake… a cake ring!

I knew I could use wooden embroidery hoops to go around the base of the cake, and then I created depth to my design by using a few different sizes of hoops to attach my paper cut outs. The possibilites for these DIY cake rings are endless!

Spooky Halloween Cake Topper & Ring Supplies

Materials Needed:

Wooden embroidery hoops (10″ and 12″)
Assorted cardstock and paper (12″x12″)
Electronic cutting machine (I used my Cricut Maker)
Black acrylic craft paint
foam paint brush
glue stick
hot glue gun
copper wire (for bat cake toppers)

How to make Halloween Cake Ring

Step 1: Cut your desired designs out of cardstock and paper. I’ve created a Design Space file for you to use to cut my entire Haunted Forest halloween design.

For my design, I used black Cricut kraftboard for the haunted house and a few of the trees. I also used silver and black glitter cardstock, and a dark gray cardstock for the rest of the spooky trees. My Cricut Maker cuts intricate details really smoothly with the kraftboard, and it adds extra weight and sturdiness to the shapes which is important!

For a few of the other large trees, I cut them out twice (once in glitter or regular cardstock, once in kraftboard), and then glued the kraftboard to the original shape with a regular gluestick to make it thicker and more sturdy.

Step 2: Paint Embroidery Hoops

For my DIY Cake rings, I used the inner hoop of each embroidery hoop (the one without the metal screw at the top). Use a small foam brush to paint both rings black. How many coats of paint should you do? One coat on the inside of the rings should be plenty, and if you want a little more solid coverage you can add a second coat to the outside of the rings.

Step 3: Place paper elements on the rings and secure them with hot glue

This is the fun part! Set both rings down on a table or other flat surface, and start placing the various paper shapes around to see what looks good. I started by gluing the haunted house in the center of the smaller ring, since I knew I wanted it closest to the cake.

Then, I just added the tallest trees on each side and started filling in with the smaller ones until I liked the placement of everything! I attached some of the trees to the back side of the hoop (inner ring) and some on the outside of the same hoop to give it more dimension. The finished rings look pretty cool, now we just need to add a cake!

How to make a simple Bat Cake topper

Cut out small bats from black cardstock, then attach them to pieces of copper wire with hot glue.

I bought a chocolate oreo cake at my local grocery store, and added three mini bat cake toppers, it looks pretty cute all by itself!

Spooky Halloween Cake

Now it’s time to put it all together and add the rings around the cake. Just plate your cake and place it on your tablecloth or counter where you will display it. Add the inner ring first, carefully placing it over the cake. Then add the outer ring, and adjust to create the finished look!