I absolutely love the details on this cake, from the pretty piping to the spooky sprinkles and a touch of sparkle created with this gold shimmer dust. It would be so stunning on any Halloween party table! And it’s delicious too – underneath all that pretty piping is my favorite black velvet cake recipe.

JOANN has an incredible selection of Halloween food crafting items like sprinkles, molds, cake pans, toppers, and really everything you could need to spook up your party table. It’s really a one-stop shop for all things Halloween though – from frightening home decor to the perfect fabric for any costume. I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing some extras like these skull shaped ice cube molds and this pretty pumpkin scented candle. 

Lambeth Cake Tips for Success

If you’ve never made one before, a Lambeth cake may look a little intimidating. Since the style involves over-piping (aka you can never pipe too many details), it ends up being a really forgiving design. Here are some of my best tips to set you up for success: 

Start with a chilled cake. Before you pipe any details, make sure that your smooth buttercream finish is nice and chilled (firm to the touch). This helps keep the buttercream finish intact while you pipe on top and will help any piping set quickly because of the cold surface. 

Place a larger cake circle underneath. Since you’ll be piping details onto the bottom border of the cake, it will save you a lot of stress to make sure the cake is sitting on a cake circle that’s larger than the cake and any piping. This way you can just lift the whole cake off of the turntable while keeping all the piping perfect. For example, since my cake layers are 6-inches in diameter, I decorated my cake on an 8-inch cake circle for easy transfer. 

Plan out your piping. It’s not enough to know what kinds of designs you want to pipe on a Lambeth cake. You have to know where to pipe them. This is where a template comes in handy, and I’ll show you how to make the most simple template ever in this tutorial below. 

Create the ideal buttercream consistency. Piping looks its best when you’re using buttercream that is the right consistency. Not so thick that there are crinkly edges, but not so thin that you can’t see detail and the designs are drooping. You want a stiff consistency buttercream, and this post will show you how to create it with my American buttercream recipe. 

Here’s a video tutorial that will walk you through how to create this Halloween Lambeth Cake from start to finish. Give it a watch before you read through the detailed steps below!

If you love cake decorating tutorial videos like this one, be sure to check out my YouTube channel! I’ve got a growing collection of recipes, decorating tutorials, and Cake Basics over there. Hit the subscribe button on my page so you never miss a new video.

You Will Need

• 6-inch cake that’s been frosted smooth and chilled
• 8-inch cake circle to decorate on
• 6-inch cake pan (for tracing)
• Wax or parchment paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Toothpick
• 2 ¼ inch round cookie cutter 
• Scotch tape
• 1 batch (3 Cups) of vanilla buttercream 
• Bowls and spoons for color mixing
• Wilton Color Right Performance Food Coloring
• 2 Tablespoons Black cocoa powder or regular cocoa powder
• Cake turntable
• Wilton tips 104, 4B, and 32
• Piping bags
• STIR Halloween Sprinkle Mixes
• STIR Edible Shimmer Dust in Gold 

Step 1: Make the Lambeth Template + Mark the Cake

The Lambeth technique is all about symmetry. The best way to keep your piping symmetrical is to make a template to mark out equal sized sections on your cake. To make the template, flip a cake pan (the same size as your cake layers) upside down onto a piece of parchment paper. Trace around it with a pencil and cut out the circle. Flipping the pan upside down and tracing around the lip helps account for the frosting on the sides of the cake when measuring the true diameter.

After cutting out your parchment paper circle, fold it in half three times to create 8 equal-sized sections.

Place the template on top of the chilled cake and mark each crease with a toothpick (a). Find a round glass or cookie cutter that’s the same diameter as the sections in your template and place a piece of scotch tape across the middle to create a half circle (b). This will help you line it up with the top of your cake as you press it into the sides (c) to indicate where each garland will go.

Step 2: Mix the Color Palette

Divide the 3 Cups of buttercream equally amongst three separate bowls and mix in the color gels of your choosing. I used the Wilton Color Right Performance Food Coloring set to custom mix these colors. In the first bowl, I mixed in 5 drops of Orange. In the second bowl, 5 drops of Pink and 2 drops of Blue to create a warm purple tone.

To create the black color in the last bowl, I first mixed in 2 Tablespoons of black cocoa powder to create a dark brown color, then mixed in 3 drops of Black. This way, I didn’t have to use nearly as much food coloring. If you don’t have access to black cocoa powder, you can use regular cocoa powder instead but note that you’ll need to use a few more drops of Black. 

Step 3: Prepare the Piping Bags

Fit two piping bags with Wilton Tip 104 and add half of the black buttercream into one and half of the purple buttercream into another. Fit two piping bags with Wilton Tip 4B and add the rest of the black buttercream and the rest of the purple buttercream. Fit one piping bag with Wilton Tip 32 and add the orange buttercream. 

Step 4: Create the Bottom Border

Starting at the bottom edge of the cake, pipe a shell border with Wilton Tip 4B using the black buttercream. To pipe a shell border, hold the bag at a 45 degree angle and squeeze the piping bag until the buttercream fans out and forces the tip upward (a). Gradually relax pressure as you lower the tip and pull the bag toward you to create a tail (b). Pipe the next shell directly onto the tail of the first (c).

Continue piping shells all the way around the bottom edge of the cake, until you reach the very first shell you piped.Using the same technique, pipe a smaller shell border on top of the first using Wilton Tip 32 and the orange buttercream.

Place purple eyeball sprinkles onto the shell border as accents. I placed mine directly below where each of the indented semi-circles from the template connected.

Step 5: Create the Ruffle Garlands + Accents 

Onto each of the semi-circle indents you created in Step 1, use the black buttercream-filled piping bag fitted with Wilton Tip 104 to create the ruffle garland. To create a ruffle, hold the piping bag at a 45 degree angle to the surface of the cake with the skinny end of the tip facing away from the cake (a). Squeeze the bag as you move your hand slightly up and down to create the ruffle texture as you pipe (b). Release pressure on the bag once you’ve ended the ruffle where you desire (c).

Continue piping black ruffles along the semi-circle indents until you reach the first one you piped.

Using the piping bag filled with purple buttercream and fitted with Wilton Tip 104, pipe a second set of purple ruffles directly onto each black ruffle.

Use the orange piping bag fitted with Wilton Tip 32 to pipe a small shell with the tail pointed upwards where each of the ruffle sets connect. Place a black spider sprinkle onto the top of the middle shell.

Pipe a purple star about an inch beneath each space where the ruffles connect using Wilton tip 4B. Place a skull sprinkle on top of each star. Gently press a pumpkin sprinkle about ½ inch beneath each skull-topped purple star.

Step 6: Decorate the Top of the Cake 

On the top edge of the cake, pipe a shell border with Wilton Tip 32 and the orange buttercream. Pipe another shell border directly next to it using Wilton Tip 4B and the purple buttercream.

Place skull sprinkles in between the two shell borders.

Use the black piping bag fitted with Wilton Tip 4B to pipe swirls next to the purple shell border and place an orange eyeball sprinkle on top of each swirl.

Step 7: Spray with Shimmer Dust 

For a little extra shine on all this pretty piping, I spritzed this Gold Edible Shimmer Dust all over the cake. It gives a really subtle finish of gold luster and was really fun to use! I want to top every cake with this stuff now.

And there you have it! The perfect Halloween showstopper cake for your party table, regardless of the average age on your guest list. Even if you’re not throwing a Halloween party this year, it’s a really fun cake design to whip up this spooky season!

I hope you love making this colorful, vintage-inspired Halloween lambeth cake as much as I did! If you do end up making one, let me know how it went in the comments below + be sure to tag @sugarandsparrowco and @joann_stores on Instagram to show us. We’d love to see what you create!   

Disclaimer: I was compensated by JOANN for my work of creating this project, styling, filming, photographing, and writing about their products. As always, all opinions are honest and my own. Thank you for supporting brands that support Sugar & Sparrow.

The post Vintage Halloween Lambeth Cake Tutorial appeared first on Sugar & Sparrow.

It’s officially feeling like Fall around here. Leaves are changing the prettiest colors, the weather’s getting colder, and I just spent the entire weekend wearing cozy sweaters and baking with autumnal flavors! One of my absolute favorite things to bake in the Fall are pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. They’re a seasonal classic, downright delicious, and they make the whole house smell incredible while they’re baking. I’ve been known to bake them and hoard them all to myself, but they also make great party cupcakes (that is, if you’re willing to share!). For all the more festive occasions, this All Hallows sprinkle mix by SprinklePop is perfect!

The All Hallows sprinkle mix features the classic Halloween color palette. There are plenty of orange, black, and white jimmies mixed with metallic silver dragees and rods, plus wafer paper pumpkins and bats to make it extra spooky (but oh so pretty!). These sprinkles are the perfect festive touch for Halloween party cupcakes, cookies, and more:

Let’s talk about the flavors going on underneath all the pretty sprinkles. As far as the cupcakes go, the use of pureed pumpkin (be careful not to use pumpkin pie filling!) makes them so moist and melt-in-your-mouth good. The crumb is fluffy and rich without being too dense from all the added moisture, making them a little dangerous because it’s easy to eat more than one! I’ve spiced the batter with cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and nutmeg just to up the cozy factor and really take the flavor of the pumpkin to the next level. And I know I said it before, but these cupcakes will make your kitchen smell like heaven!

Cream cheese buttercream is the perfect pairing for pumpkin cupcakes, and while cream cheese frostings tend to be on the soft side, the recipe I use is perfect for piping! It’s decadent and flavorful without being overly sweet, and holds its shape long enough to pipe some pretty designs. I’ve used Wilton Tip 6B to pipe large open stars over the surface of the cupcakes before sprinkling with the All Hallows sprinkle mix.

Since I couldn’t decide whether I wanted a white or orange buttercream backdrop for these sprinkles, I went ahead and tinted some of the cream cheese buttercream with orange food color gel. I actually ended up liking both looks, so I paired them together for all these photos! I’m sure that the All Hallows sprinkle mix would look amazing on any spooky buttercream color palette or piping design. Whatever your Halloween event, these cupcakes will be a sure hit looks-wise and flavor-wise!

Print

Pumpkin Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Buttercream

Moist and flavorful spiced pumpkin cupcakes topped with decadent cream cheese buttercream that’s the perfect consistency for pretty piping.

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 19 minutes

Total Time 39 minutes

Servings 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

Pumpkin Cupcakes

• 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour, measured correctly*
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
• 2 eggs, room temperature

Cream Cheese Buttercream

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp salt

Instructions

Make The Pumpkin Cupcakes

• Preheat the oven to 350ºF and prepare a muffin pan by lining with cupcake tins. *Measure the flour by spooning into your measuring cup and leveling it, then whisk it together with the rest of the dry ingredients and set aside. 
• Cream the butter on high for 1 minute. Add the white and brown sugars and cream on high for another 2 minutes. Add the pumpkin and vanilla and beat for 3 full minutes, scraping down the bowl and paddle once in between. Turn the mixer to low and add the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition. With the mixer still on low, add the dry ingredients until combined. The batter will be thick. 
• Spoon the batter into prepared cupcake tins ⅔ of the way full, then bake for 19 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes in the pan for five minutes before removing and continuing to cool on a wire rack or flat surface. 

Make The Cream Cheese Buttercream

• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and cream cheese on high until light, fluffy, and uniform (no lumps), about five minutes. Turn the mixer to low and add the powdered sugar a few cups at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition. Add the vanilla and salt, mixing on low for another 30 seconds. 

Assembly

• After the cupcakes are fully cooled, prepare a piping bag by fitting with Wilton Tip 6B (or other favorite piping tip) and filling the bag with cream cheese buttercream. I’ve chosen to pipe a few open stars over the surface of each cupcake. Finish by sprinkling with the All Hallows sprinkle mix. 

Notes

Make Ahead Tips: The cupcakes can be made ahead and stored at room temperature, covered with plastic wrap, for up to two days.

The cream cheese buttercream can be made ahead and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. When you’re ready to use it, bring it back to room temperature and re-whip with your mixer to bring it back to the right consistency.

This cupcake recipe is a Fall staple in my book, and I hope it makes its way into yours. Whether you decorate them for Halloween, make them for another occasion, or hoard them all to yourself (like I do!), they’re guaranteed to please. Happy Fall, y’all!

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