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Jack-O-Lantern Candy Pail Cake

You’ll Want To Collect ALL The Halloween Candies With This Pail!

How is it Halloween ALREADY!? Am I the only one who feels like Halloween always creeps up on me? If you’re still scrambling to find something to use to collect your candies, I’ve got you covered... with this SWEET Jack-O-Lantern (Candy Pail) Cake! I mean, what’s better than collecting your Halloween candies while you eat CAKE?

To make my Jack-O-Lantern candy pail cake, I filled 12lbs of my rich Ultimate Chocolate Cake with Orange Italian Meringue Buttercream and covered the entire cake in Orange fondant. I even decorated him to look exactly like those candy pails you can buy at the dollar store - complete with a spooky Jack-O-Lantern face, and piled to the brim with my FAVE Halloween candies!

Watch me cake a Jack-O-Lantern candy pail in my latest YouTube video here!

Share this recipe

Baking the Cake:

12 lbs Yo’s Ultimate Chocolate Cake [link]

Icing The Cake:

Simple Syrup [link]
Italian Meringue Buttercream [link]
Orange Food Colouring

Covering The Cake:

Red Fondant
Yellow Fondant
Black Fondant

Decorating The Cake:

Halloween Candies

Item Name:	Availability:
4 x 8” Round Cake Pans, lined with parchment paper
1 x 5” Round Cake Pan (NOT for baking!)
Rubber Spatula
Ruler
Serrated Knife
Small Serrated Knife
Small Icing Spatula
Small Offset Spatula
Offset Spatula
Rolling Pin
Fondant Smoother
Paring Knife
Paint Brushes
Fondant Rolling Pin
Non-stick Board
Circle Cutters

Preparation

Bake Chocolate Cakes

Prepare 12 lbs of Yo’s Ultimate Chocolate Cake recipe in 4x8” round pans. Pour 3lb of batter into each pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool cakes completely in their pans sitting on a wire rack.

Prepare Buttercream

Prepare your Italian Meringue Buttercream. Once your buttercream is prepared, mix in some orange food colouring. Once dyed, set your bowl aside at room temperature. [Link to recipe!]

Prepare Simple Syrup

Prepare your simple syrup and set aside at room temperature. [Link to recipe!]

Level Chocolate Cakes

Once your chocolate cakes are completely cool, remove them from their pans. Flip your cakes over and cut off all the caramelization from the bottoms. Set aside.

It’s Simple!

Shower all of your chocolate cake layers with simple syrup. Allow the simple syrup to soak in completely before moving on to the next step.

Stack Your Layers

Begin stacking and filling your cakes with Orange Italian Meringue Buttercream. Place your first layer of black chocolate cake down, spread your buttercream and continue layering until you place your final cake layer on top. Chill cake in the fridge to allow the buttercream to set.

Shape Your Jack-O-Lantern Bucket

Start by flipping your cake. Using a 5” cake pan, lightly score the top of your cake by guiding a sharp paring knife all around the cake pan. Carve from that mark to about halfway down the cake, rounding it out. Flip the cake right side up. Carve the cake in the same way, creating a circular mark with your cake pan and carving from that mark down to the centre of the cake.

Note: If you feel like your Cake-O-Lantern is short, you can use some of your leftover cake humps to create more height! For more info on how I carved my cake, you can check out how to make your Cake-O-Lantern taller here.

Crumb Coat & Chill

Crumb coat your cake with Orange buttercream using your small offset spatula & chill in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

Making Your Handle

While your cake is chilling, let’s start making your candy pail handle! Roll some Black fondant into a long cord. Next, brush some clear piping gel onto a floral wire, set that wire onto the fondant and then just pinch the fondant up around the wire. Now, take your Black fondant (with the wire inside it!) and roll it on your table and make it look like a smooth cord. Your handle will need to bend so it will fit into the cake! To help it keep its shape, wrap the cord around the bottom of a cake pan and use some masking tape on the exposed wire so that it will dry in this shape while you finish making your cake. At the bottom of the handle, there are two plastic round bits that attach the handle to the Jack-O-Lantern pail! Roll out some more black fondant and use a round piping tip to cut out a few circles and then use the blade of your sharp paring knife to create a seam. Set aside to dry.

Note: For more information about how to shape your handle, click here!

Ice & Chill

Remove your cake from the fridge and ice again using your Orange buttercream. Using your small straight spatula, smooth out any ridges! Chill for another 20 minutes.

Cover Jack-O-Lantern

Time to cover this cake in fondant! Roll out half of your fondant wide enough and tall enough to cover half of your cake. Drape it over half of your cake, smoothing with your hands. You’ll want to tuck the excess underneath. Leave the excess fondant on the top of the cake alone for now. (We’ll come back to it!) Repeat these steps on the other side of your cake. Before you trim, you will want to pop your cake back into the fridge for a little bit to firm up.

Note: A little tip about making orange fondant, mix red fondant with yellow fondant instead of adding orange food colouring to white fondant. You’ll need twice as much yellow as red. If you’d like to know more about how I covered my Jack-O-Lantern, check it out in my YouTube video here!

Cutting Fondant

Once your fondant is chilled, we’re going to cut our seams! Use a fabric measuring tape to help cut a straight and consistent “seam” from top to bottom on either side of your cake. Keep in mind where the fondant is cut underneath, and carefully cut the seam so that the two sides of fondant fit together. Use a circle cutter to trim the excess fondant away from the top of your cake. This will become the opening of the jack-o-lantern bucket!

Note: If your fondant gets too soft, chilling your fondant before cutting the top will help you get a nice clean cut. If you’d like to know more about how I covered my Jack-O-Lantern, check it out in my YouTube video here!

Create Your Jack-O-Lantern’s “Indents”

To make sure that your Jack-O-Lantern looks like a Jack-O-Lantern pail, and not a big orange ball, you’ll need to add indents to the sides. Remember, this pumpkin is not from the patch, so we’ll need to make it look manufactured! To make these indents, use a veining tool and your fabric measuring tape. Use the measuring tape to measure around and make sure that these indents are evenly spaced. Then, placing your measuring tape along the sides where your indents should be, run your veining tool along the tape, from up to down consistently.

Note: if you feel the need to fill in any thin areas or patch some cracks, create a fondant paste using leftover fondant and some water! For more information on how to utilities your fondant paste you can watch here.

Creating the Bucket Seams

Time to address the seams! On these jack-o-lantern pails, the seams tend to stick out. So, to enhance your seams, use your Clay Extruder fitted with the smallest circle face plate. Extrude some of your orange fondant, after softening it with some a little vegetable shortening. Dab some piping gel on the back of that small strand of fondant and attach it to your Cake-O-Lantern!

Note: If you’d like to know more about how I created my seams using fondant, check it out in my YouTube video here!

Create The Pail’s Rim

Using the rectangular face plate on your Clay Extruder, take some more excess fondant that has also been softened with some vegetable shortening and create a 1/2” strip! Take the fondant cord you just created and wrap it around the top of the same-sized circle cutter that you used to be make your cake’s opening. Set it in the fridge to chill for about 15 minutes.

Give It A FACE!

Make yourself a template of the face that you want your Jack-O-Lantern to have! From this template, cut out two eyes, a nose and a mouth! Take your template pieces, line them up on your Jack-O-Lantern cake and cut them out using an exacto-knife or sharp paring knife.

Add the Rim

Before painting this cake, I need to add the rim. Take your chilled fondant rim out of the fridge and secure on top with some clear piping gel. You’ll want it to sit within the circle that’s already on top.

Note: For more information about how I placed your rim, check it out in my YouTube video here!

Painting Your Jack-O-Lantern

Because Jack-O-Lantern candy pails are plastic, they have a bit of a sheen and aren’t as flat as fondant. Use some orange food colouring mixed with clear food grade alcohol and then brush the paint all around the cake in an up and down motion. While your paint is drying, roll out your black fondant. You’ll be using it to fill in your cut outs of the eyes, nose and mouth!

Jack-O-Lantern Face

Roll your Black fondant out nice and thin. Using the templates that you used to cut out orange fondant from your cake, lay them down on your black fondant and cut them out with the same sharp knife. Once the paint on your cake is fully dry, add the black features into the gaps that are left behind in the cake. You may need to trim them so that they’re just a little bit smaller than the gaps. Once they’re the right size, gently press them into the gaps in your orange fondant.

Note: If you need the extra help, you can use a paint brush to push your fondant features in! Gently use the brush side to push it in rather than your finger tip, which will leave a mark. You can see how I placed my black fondant Jack-O-Lantern face in my YouTube video here!

Add Your Handle

Measure and mark an equal distance on each side of the top of your bucket, next to the seam. Thread the little round piece at the end of the handle on each side, then poke the handle into the cake on each side. Set aside to dry.

Note: The good thing about making this handle on the same day is that it won’t be too hard yet - that way, if you needed to adjust the handle it won’t crack! You can see how I finished the handle in my youtube video here!

Final Touches

Fill the top of your Jack-O-Lantern candy pail with your FAVE Halloween candies! Your Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin Pail is now complete.

Congratulations!

If all went well, you should see something that looks like this...

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