Happy Monday everyone!  And Happy Halloween!  Halloween is my favorite holiday and I always celebrate it by curbing my sweet tooth and creating something sweet to eat.  If my aunts are reading this, they might be laughing because my whole family can relate.  We all have that sweet tooth!  This year I made this white box cake with homemade Orange Cream Cheese Icing.  This cake is so fun to make using black gel food coloring to color the cake and then choosing the right color gel for the icing.  With Halloween being so versatile in color now, I wasn’t sure if I should make it purple or orange and decided to stay with the traditional colors.  This recipe was adapted from Peaches To Peaches food blog. I cut time by using a box cake and then changing up the icing recipe a lot :-).

This cake would look great as a double or triple layered cake with colored icing in the middle.  I chose to keep it simple with green sugar crystals on top but you can always decorate with candy, cookies, edible flowers, fake spiders, themed candles, skulls, or a web design.  I have to admit that my cakes are never really decorated all that fabulous but I’m making it my mission in 2023 to learn the fine art of cake decorating.  Mr. TAL bought me some tools last year for Christmas but sadly I have only used them once to make icing flowers.

The importance of letting your cream cheese come to room temperature:

One important step I missed was waiting until my cream cheese got to room temperature.  I wasn’t patient enough and that is why you see little white chunks in the icing.  It’s so important to let your butter and cream cheese come to room temperature before mixing when making a recipe.  It makes life so much easier when all the ingredients blend well.  Otherwise, it shows.  You can take short cuts by using the microwave but being patient is the best.

Using flavored creamer in place of milk:

I started using flavored creamer in my recipes three years ago when I wrote my cookbooks and love it so much better.  The original recipe called for heavy cream but I chose to use International Delight Caramel Macchiato.  It’s not as thick as heavy cream but thick enough and adds so much more flavor.

Making the cake and icing:

I’ve made this cake twice now.  Once with a French Vanilla cake mix and this time with white cake mix.  I personally like the French Vanilla better with this icing.  I simply added heaping amounts of black food coloring to change the color to black.  The icing came together quickly by mixing my cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, the whole tube of orange food coloring, and caramel macchiato.  Another important tip is to let your cake cool completely before icing or the icing will slide right off.  I always used a bundt pan to make my cakes because I love a round cake over a square cake.  I take the cake out of the oven, let sit for a few minutes and then remove it from the bundt pan.  Once it’s cool, I remove the bottom and lay it on my glass cake stand.  Word of advice…make sure your cakes is cool before laying on the glass.  A hot cake can break the glass.  Ask me how I know…It’s happened before!

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did.  Jake And Maggie hung out with me in the kitchen the whole time waiting patiently for something to drop.  But cake is a no no for them so instead, I gave them slice of apple.  As you can see by Jake’s far, he would have rather had the cake.  I don’t blame him.

I used the same food coloring in my Chocolate Pumpkin Cookies!  I like making recipes where I can use up my ingredients in different ways.  Plus using my fall dishes (last year’s pattern) from Walmart is always fun!  Similar HERE.  Enjoy!  Stay tuned for Wednesday.  I made adorable fall shaped doggie cookies that are definitely Lab approved!