This Halloween funfetti cake is a fantastic festive treat made simple, from a tricked-out box mix. So easy, you’ll swear it’s magic, but tastes homemade. What’s the secret to this Samhain treat? It’s a very simple spell!

We’re making our box of Halloween funfetti cake mix with rich and flavorful melted butter, adding a colorful cake swirl to the otherwise plain vanilla batter, and filling it with spiced apple butter.

It’s a forgiving formula, but will level up your basic boxed cake with sweet apple cinnamon spice and rich buttery flavor.

title image for recipe, orange frosted cake with halloween sprinkles and vanilla-orange swirl batter. text reads, "box mix baking tricks, spooky spice samhain funfetti witch cake alewyfe.com"

Spiced Samhain Funfetti Cake Ingredients

Cake mix:

Can’t find or don’t have the fall funfetti cake mix? No worries, my kitchen witches (and warlocks), you can hack it!

Use a regular white cake mix, and your own Halloween sprinkles (black or brown, orange, and maybe purple) and you will get basically the same results! Use about a half cup of fall-colored sprinkles (tossed with a tablespoon of all-purpose flour before adding to the batter).

Butter:

We’re replacing the oil in the cake mix with melted butter. This will give you a dense delicious crumb and a richer flavor with real butter in the batter instead of bland oil.

Eggs:

Use three large eggs, at room temperature. If you forget to take them out of the refrigerator (no more than half an hour before baking if you are using washed store-bought eggs), submerge them in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes to take the chill off. This will help keep the melted butter from stiffening while you are mixing the cake batter.

Water:

Use room temperature, lukewarm water to mix your cake batter.

Coloring & sprinkles:

If you want to make the multi-color swirl, you’ll need either orange gel food coloring, or a few drops each of red and yellow food coloring. You can use natural or conventional food coloring, but will get brighter, cleaner-looking colors with the regular coloring. Up to you!

If you are using regular cake mix, you’ll need jimmies or sprinkles in fall-themed hues like orange, brown, and yellow, or shades of purple, black, and green. Some sprinkles are not color-fast when they get wet… test yours before folding into the batter. If so, you’ll want to mix them very quickly and carefully sprinkle them over the batter, mixing minimally so that they don’t smear and tint the batter a muddy color. If you’re using the funfetti cake mix, you don’t need to worry about this, as the sprinkles will be the right kind.

unbaked funfetti halloween cake mix batter swirl.

Apple butter or preserves:

After you bake and cool your cake layers, it’s time to assemble them. Slather a generous layer of apple butter between the cake layers. If you want to be super fancy and have more apple flavor, you can divide the cake layers in half horizontally and add another layer of apple butter (you’ll need a bigger jar of apple butter to frost the extra layers).

If you don’t have a jar of homemade apple butter in the pantry, store-bought is fine. You can also use pumpkin butter, salted pear butter, ginger peach butter, or even carrot-cake jam to fill the cake between the layers.

Frosting:

If you really want to make it a next level dessert, make your own buttercream frosting or even cream cheese frosting, but sometimes, that regular tub of store-bought vanilla frosting hits the right nostalgic notes, tooth-achingly sweetness and all.

You can leave your vanilla frosting either creamy natural colored or tint it with festive orange or purple food coloring, or use the pre-tinted funfetti frosting.

And, abracadabra…

You made Spooky Spice Samhain Funfetti Witch Cake!

a slice of Halloween funfetti cake on a plate, flanked with a spread of Crow Tarot cards, a mug of witch's brew coffee, toasted pumpkin seeds, and multicolored eggs, along with a cartoon witch girl holding a trick-or-treating pumpkin

Serving and Pairing Ideas

The cards are telling me that you should give this fun fall funfetti cake a spot in your dessert spread! Or, have a slice for breakfast. Which breakfast? Witch breakfast! (If you don’t know, just ask the crows.)

Whether you’re pairing it with a pumpkin spice latte, a cup of plain black magic joe, cinnamon apple tea, hot cider, or a cold frothy spiced pumpkin ale, it’s a sweet and spooky treat for your favorite Spooptober occasion.

You can serve this Halloween cake by itself, or even better, with a scoop of vanilla or pumpkin ice cream, or lightly-sweetened whipped cream. Magically delicious!

an orange frosted Halloween funfetti cake filled with spiced apple butter and topped with festive bat and pumpkin sprinkles

Can I make this recipe as cupcakes?

Sure, of course! These are extra cute, especially with festive cupcake liners, and great for sharing with friends or making an ooky spooky dessert buffet tray.

Use a batter or ice cream scoop to distribute half of the swirl-mixed batter in the muffin tins. Add a tablespoon or so of apple butter to the center of each cupcake, then scoop the remaining batter to cover the preserves.

Spooky Spice Samhain Funfetti Witch Cake

Alewyfe

This Halloween funfetti cake is a fantastic festive treat made simple, from a tricked-out box mix. So easy, you'll swear it's magic, but tastes homemade.

5 from 1 vote

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Prep Time 10

Cook Time 30

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Ingredients

1 box Halloween Funfetti cake mix
1 cup lukewarm water 8 oz
3 large eggs room temperature
½ cup butter, melted 4 oz
3-5 drops red and yellow food coloring equal parts (3-5 drops each)
1 cup apple butter 8 oz (half-pint jar)
1 pint Halloween Funfetti frosting substitute any vanilla buttercream frosting (tinted orange or purple with food coloring)… or homemade buttercream is delicious if you have the time!

Instructions

Mix and bake funfetti cake layers:

Assemble ingredients and preheat the oven to 350℉. Butter & flour two 9" round pans (or use your preferred baking spray).
Melt the butter and mix the cake batter, substituting melted butter for the vegetable oil in the instructions.
Divide about ⅔'s of the cake batter evenly between the two cake pans. To the batter that remains, add equal parts yellow and red food coloring (or orange food coloring) until you reach the desired shade of orange for your swirl.
Drop the dyed orange batter evenly into each pan in several dollops. Using a spatula, trace a swirl through the two batters to swirl the orange batter into the plain vanilla batter. Don't overmix- you want the cake layers to have a visible mottling of the batters. Smooth the top lightly if needed, though the batter will even out while it bakes.
Bake the cakes in the hot oven until a skewer comes out clean (29-33 minutes for 9" rounds). Remove and let cool for 10 minutes, then turn pans upside down to cool on a wire rack. The layers should release cleanly from the pan.

Cool, fill, and frost the cakes:

Once the cake layers have completely cooled, place the bottom layer on a cake plate, flat side up.
Spread the apple butter filling on the bottom layer, and top with the second layer, rounded side up. You can also split each of the cake layers in half and use extra apple butter between each layer (you will need at least twice as much apple butter, but spread it more thinly).
Brush any loose crumbs from the surface of the cake. Spread a very thin layer of the frosting on the cake, sealing the apple butter filling and crumbs in. This is easiest with a thin metal cake spatula.
Put the cake in the fridge, freezer, or other cold place to set the crumb coat. This step isn't entirely necessary, but will give a cleaner frosted cake with less crumbs.
Wash the spatula or get out a clean one, and then add the rest of the frosting to the top and sides of the cake over the chilled crumb coat.
Top the frosted cake with festive sprinkles or gel icing spiderwebs.

Keyword apple, easy, fall, fall foods, festive, halloween, holiday, kid-friendly, layer cake, party food, quick, samhain, simple, spoopy

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BAKE: Spooky Spice Samhain Funfetti Witch Cake