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Halloween Skull & Worms Cake: Fun for the Kids (and you!)

October 27th, 2007

I’m constantly looking for new and adventurous ways to tickle the “gross me out” bones of the two young boys in my family, especially on Halloween. A few years ago I needed a unique dessert they’d love for a Halloween party. I sat down and thought about scary stories that disgusted me as a child, and one stanza of a children’s song popped into my head:

“The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out,
The worms play pinochle on your snout.
They eat your eyes, they eat your nose,
They eat the jelly between your toes.”
(See the full lyrics to the song, “The Hearse Song”, here.)

Suddenly it struck me: a skull-shaped cake with gummy worms crawling out of every orifice. I had my gross Halloween recipe and I knew it would thrill them!

The concept was simple enough, but the execution was slightly more complicated. I found a suitable skull cake pan at Fright Catalog. A standard boxed cake mix was easy to come by. Working with the mold was a little unusual—I was a first-timer to molded cakes and it takes a little finesse. The trickiest part is greasing the mold properly. For help, check out Baking911.com.

Once baked and cooled, another challenge arose. It’s tough to ice a delicately-molded cake with thick canned icing. I experimented with implements and found a smaller knife with smaller strokes around the mouth and eyes was most successful. When iced, the details of the skull lose definition somewhat so it’s a good idea—and adds to the fun—to use chocolate icing or dark frosting to trace the mouth and color in the nostrils and eye sockets.

Photo by Jason Meredith. Some rights reserved.

Then it was down to the pièce de résistance, the gummy worms. There are several types on the market, from the standard translucent brightly-colored to frosted opaque neon. I learned not to add the worms too soon before serving, because the gelatin can melt against the icing’s moisture. I simply punctured the cake where I wanted the worms to lie, anchored one end of the worm in the cake, and let the other end drape like it was dragging its body along the surface. For the best effect, I cut a few worms shorter so that they appeared to burrow deeper and had their “tails” higher in the air.

The end result made the kids squeal with laughter. And the pan has remained handy—I used it not long after as an equally creepy jell-o mold! This is a cake I’ll make again and again. It’s an easy way to add something gruesome to your Halloween party plans this year. For gross variations, try plastic toy spiders and bugs atop the skull as well.

« Dina Ely is a journalist, poet, and author of short fiction. Readers can contact her at dely723@yahoo.com »

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