Learn how to create this Easy Halloween Graveyard Cake for your next Halloween party!

This Graveyard Cake is made with a boxed chocolate cake mix, delicious homemade chocolate buttercream frosting, and spooky and fun DIY cake decorations like tombstone cookies, marshmallow ghosts, Oreo dirt, pretzel bones, and a chocolate stick fence.

Easy Halloween Graveyard Cake

Happy Tuesday, everyone! Can you believe Halloween is this weekend?! I swear the month of October has seriously flew by!

Nevertheless, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to create another fun spooky treat with my boys, so today I’m sharing how to create this Easy Halloween Graveyard Cake.

This Easy Halloween Graveyard Cake is adorable and perfect for Halloween parties with your family and friends!

This cemetery cake is so fun, delicious, and best of all – easy to make with ingredients you already have on hand.

If you wanna learn how to make this Fun Halloween Graveyard Dirt Cake for you and your family, then keep reading below for my easy step-by-step tutorial and recipe!

Graveyard Halloween Cake

What’s a Graveyard Cake?

A graveyard cake is just as the name implies, a cake that looks like a graveyard!

Don’t worry though, it’s actually very simple to make and you can get super creative with the decorations.

How to Make a Graveyard Cake for Halloween?

This Graveyard Cake is made with a simple boxed devil’s food chocolate cake mix and frosted with my delicious homemade chocolate buttercream frosting.

For decorations, it has fun tombstone cookies, ghost marshmallows, skeleton bones, crushed up Oreo “dirt”, pumpkin candy corn, and is surrounded with a rustic graveyard fence made from chocolate sticks.

My boys had a blast helping make all the decorations for the cake and taste testing along the way, and when we finished they said “Mom, this is the BEST cake we’ve ever made.”

That right there is why I love baking with my family so much, and it’s those precious moments and memories made that are truly priceless.

Easy Halloween Graveyard Cake

This Halloween Graveyard Cake consists of three easy steps – preparing and baking your cake, making your chocolate buttercream frosting, and making your spooky cake decorations.

To make it easy for you, I’ve included all the recommended supplies and ingredients I used below, but feel free to use whatever you have on hand and have fun in being creative with this cake.

It’s a lot of fun to make with the kids and they’ll have a blast getting to add on all the decorations.

Graveyard Cake Supplies Needed:

Cemetery Cake Decorating Items Needed:

How to Make Halloween Graveyard Cake

Bake & Cool Cake

Start by mixing up and baking a box of your favorite chocolate cake mix.

For this cake, I put 3/4 of the batter in a 8″x3″ round cake pan and made the leftover batter into cupcakes, but you could easily make a 9″x13″ cake to keep it simple.

Once your cake has baked, let it cool completely before frosting.

Pro Tip: I always like to put my cakes into the freezer while I’m preparing my frosting or other cake elements, and this makes it really easy to frost.

While waiting for the cake to cool, prepare the homemade chocolate buttercream frosting according to my recipe card below.

If you’re short on time, you can easily use store-bought frosting, but just know it won’t be as good as my homemade! 🙂

Next, level the top of the cake (if needed) and turn it upside down on the cake platter to frost.

This will give you a flatter surface to work with.

Frost Your Cake

Next, it’s time to frost your cake with the homemade chocolate buttercream.

Frost your cake on the top and sides using a cake icing spatula until completely covered.

Smooth out any excess frosting, but don’t worry about it being perfect – we’re gonna be covering it with “dirt” later.

Make Your Graveyard Fence

Now that your cake is completely frosted, it’s time to start making it look like a graveyard.

When I first came up with the idea for this cake I knew I wanted a fence around it and chocolate Pocky sticks were the perfect solution.

In case you’re not familiar, you can usually find them in the Asian foods section in grocery stores or on Amazon and they’re super yummy!

Using a pairing knife, cut the sticks down to size to fit your cake.

I ended up cutting off the non-chocolate covered section of the sticks, then cutting them in half and they were the perfect height. You can cut several sticks at a time to help speed up this step.

Once they are cut to size, begin placing them on the side of your cake evenly spaced apart, and leave an open section for your graveyard entrance.

My boys actually did this part and they chose to alternate between the non-chocolate end and the chocolate ends pointing up.

They also bent over a few of the sticks to make it look rustic.

Add Dirt to Your Cake

Next, it’s time to add some dirt on your cake!

Grab several Oreos or chocolate animal crackers and crush them up in a Ziploc bag. Make sure if you use Oreos you remove the white cream filling, as you just want the cookie part.

Toss your cookie dirt all over your cake top and around the cake plate, if desired.

The kids love this part because they get to be messy.

Make Your tombstones & Grave Sign

Moving on to the cake decorations, grab some Milano cookies for making your tombstones.

Use black decorator icing or an edible food pen and carefully write the letters RIP on each tombstone.

To make the graveyard sign, coat a half of a graham cracker in white chocolate and lay on top of two full-length Pocky sticks.

Place in the fridge to harden, and once the chocolate has set, write the word “Grave” on the sign with black decorating icing.

Add The Final Spooky Touches to Your Graveyard Cake

Next, gently press the decorated tombstones into your graveyard cake and begin adding other spooky decorations as desired.

We ended up making bones with broken pretzels coated in white chocolate and ghosts out of large marshmallows cut into thirds and twisted to look like a ghost.

To make their faces I added three black dots with decorator icing, and I placed them on the cake using some leftover frosting so they would stay put.

Decorate the cake with bones, eyeballs, pumpkins, and any other decorations as desired.

This step was really fun, and you can get really creative here depending on what ingredients you have on hand.

Graveyard Cake Decoration Ideas:

White chocolate coated pretzel “bones”
Marshmallow ghosts
Candy eyes
Candy hands
Chocolate trees
Green slime
Spiders
Gummy Worms
Pumpkins
Candy Corn
Candy Skeletons
Mummies

How to Store Leftover Graveyard Cake

This cake is best enjoyed fresh, but leftover cake should be stored covered or in an airtight container at room temperature.

It will remain fresh for 3-5 days, but keep in mind some of the decorations (such as the cookies and pretzels) may get soggy the next day.

Easy Halloween Graveyard Cake

Print Recipe

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This Easy Halloween Graveyard Cake is made with a boxed cake mix, chocolate buttercream frosting, and spooky and fun DIY cake decorations.

Author: Kindly Unspoken
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour
Yield: 12 servings 1x
Category: Dessert
Method: Oven
Cuisine: American

Ingredients

Scale

Cake

1 15.25 Oz Chocolate Cake Mix (Devil’s Food or Chocolate Fudge recommended)
1 1/4 cups water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
3 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened natural or dutch-process cocoa powder
3 Tbsp heavy cream or milk
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla extract

Cake Decorations

4 Milano Cookies
Black Decorator Icing
6-8 Oreo Cookies, cream removed and crushed
4 Pumpkin Candy Corns
1 Large Marshmallow (or Ghost Peeps)
4–5 Pretzels, broken
Pocky Sticks
1-2 Bars White Chocolate Coating, melted
Spooky Candy Eyes/Sprinkles
1 half Graham Cracker

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray your cake pan with non-stick cooking spray.
Place cake mix, water, oil, and eggs in a large mixing bowl and mix with an electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes.
Pour cake batter into prepared pan and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes (or according to cake pan directions on package)
Let cake cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Using a stand mixer or handheld mixer, cream room temperature butter on medium speed for 2 minutes until nice and smooth.
Next add in cocoa powder, powdered sugar, heavy cream, salt, and vanilla extract. I like to add my powdered sugar in 1/2 cup increments to make it easier.
Beat the mixture on low speed for 30 seconds and then increase to high and mix for 1 minute. Frosting will be creamy and smooth.

Cake Decorations

Frost your cake with the homemade chocolate buttercream on the top and sides using a cake icing spatula until completely covered.
Cut Pocky sticks in half or thirds and place evenly spaced apart on the side of the cake, alternating which end faces up and staggering if desired. Make sure you leave an opening for your graveyard entrance.
Next, crush up your oreos (with filling removed) and sprinkle all over the cake and cake plate.
Next, make your tombstones using Milano cookies and black decorator icing. Carefully write the letters RIP on each cookie.
To make the graveyard sign, coat a half of a graham cracker in white chocolate and lay on top of two full-length Pocky sticks. Place in the fridge to harden, and once the chocolate has set, write the word “Grave” on the sign with black decorating icing.
Create bones for your cake by breaking pretzels up into small pieces and coating in white chocolate. Create ghosts, by cutting a large marshmallow into thirds and twisting the top to look like a ghost. Add three dots on each with decorating icing to create the face.
Gently press the tombstones down into the cake and decorate with ghosts, bones, pumpkins, eyeballs, and any other decorations you desire. Gummy worms, spiders, bats, sprinkles, and candy corn all would be great too!

Notes

Any leftover frosting can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge up to 1 week or for 3 months in the freezer.
Leftover cake should be covered and stored at room temperature for up to 1 week

More Delicious Recipes for Halloween:

I absolutely adore how this Graveyard Cake turned out and had so much fun making it with my kiddos.

I hope you’ll give this graveyard dirt cake a try for your next Halloween party!

Hope you enjoyed today’s Fun and Easy Halloween Graveyard Cake! Would you make this cemetery cake for a Halloween party for your family? Let me know in the comments below!

Thanks for stopping by! – Cara

Easy Halloween Graveyard Cake

Easy Halloween Graveyard Cake