How to Make a Red Vine Monster Cake

Whether you are making a monster cake for Halloween or for a monster-themed birthday, this Red Vine Monster Cake is ridiculously cute and easy to make! Sponsored by Red Vines.

Not everything for Halloween has to be freaky, ghoulish or gory. Sometimes cute is what you need. And if you have little kids, cute is definitely what you need.

Whether you are making a monster cake for Halloween or for a monster-themed birthday, it is a very easy cake to assemble and decorate. You just need a few necessities and a bit of patience to make this cake.

For this version, I used two boxed cake mixes (chocolate cake that I dyed black) and divided the batter into three pans: two 9-inch round cake pans and one soccer ball cake pan.

If you want a smaller head and taller body for your monster cake, you can use two 6-inch round cake pans and bake the head in a smaller sized glass mixing bowl like this.

Once baked, I let the cakes cool and then cut the tops off to even the layers. I used ready-made frosting and dyed it red, but feel free to make your own buttercream frosting. For the assembly, I stacked the two round cakes, frosting in between, and topped with half dome. Then I crumb coated the whole cake.

Now for the eyes and mouth I challenged myself and make homemade marshmallow fondant. My daughter was home sick and I couldn’t run out to Michael’s to get ready-made fondant. Since I had everything on hand, I decided, “Why not?”

This totally added to the prep time, so if you are going to make your own fondant, add another 30-45 minutes to the prep time, depending on how talented you are as a cake decorator!

I cut my fondant eyes and mouth with a sharp knife, knowing I could hide it’s imperfections with frosting later. If you have small oval cutters, feel free to use them. Just know that you can do it without fancy tools.

If you aren’t a fan of fondant or you don’t want to deal with it, you can frost in the eyes and mouth, or dip small cookies in white chocolate. Me? I used fondant.

The next step is an easy step, but it also KILLS your hands: it’s time to frost the cake. I used my favorite tip for this job: #233. It has a bunch of little holes in it and you can use it for hair or grass effects. It is a very forgiving way to decorate your cake.

You start at the base of the cake, squeeze out the frosting, pull up and let go. You can make long hair, short hair, squiggly hair… you name it. Take breaks because you’ll get hand cramps (tell me about it!), but it is totally worth it.

The final step is the best step: Bring on the Red Vines! My kids thought I was a rock star when we received our care package in the mail from Red Vines. Needless to say, but Red Vines are a personal favorite in our family.

My son shared a picture of all the Red Vines we received and his friends were begging him to bring some to school the next day. Yeah, I gave him a bag and he was a rock star for a day, too.

The amount of spiky Red Vine hair you want on your monster cake is up to you. You can go simple or all out, even make some mohawks. I do suggest you refrigerate your cake prior to sliding in the Red Vines, to help keep the hair from slouching in a soft cake.

Red Vines come in black licorice and purple grape, too. So you can really let your imagination go wild. I chose their original red for this monster cake.

The ooohs and aaaahs I received when I showed off this monster cake made it all worth it. I hope your little monsters like it too!

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Yield: 24 servings

Red Vine Monster Cake

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Whether you are making a monster cake for Halloween or for a monster-themed birthday, this Red Vine Monster Cake is ridiculously cute and easy to make!

Prep Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Additional Time 1 hour

Total Time 4 hours

Ingredients

• 2 Devil's Food Boxed Cake Mix
• 1 ⅓ cups water*
• ½ cup vegetable oil*
• 3 eggs*
• 6-7 cups frosting
• 4 oz white fondant
• 1 tsp powdered sugar (optional)
• Red food coloring
• Black food coloring
• Blue food coloring
• 1 5-ounce package of Red Vines Red Licorice Twists

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. Lightly oil two 9-inch round cake pans and line bottom with parchment paper.
3. Lightly oil a soccer ball cake mold.
4. Follow directions on your cake mix box and whip up the batter from one box.
5. Divide batter evenly between the two cake pans and bake until done or when a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan comes out clean, approximately 30-35 minutes.
6. Remove cakes from pan and let them cool on a cooling rack.
7. While first cakes are baking in the oven, mix ingredients to make batter from second cake mix box.
8. Pour second cake box batter into prepared soccer pan.
9. Reduce oven temperature to 325ºF and bake soccer cake until done or when a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan comes out clean, approximately 45-60 minutes.
10. Let soccer cake cool completely on cooling rack.
11. Divide fondant into 4 equal pieces. Reserve one quarter to remain white. Dye a second quarter blue.
12. Combine the remaining two quarters and dye black.
13. Using a large cutting board, roll out white fondant to about ¼-inch thick. Use oval cookie cutters to cut two large ovals.
14. Roll out blue fondant to about ¼-inch thick. Use oval cookie cutters to cut two smaller ovals.
15. Roll out black fondant to about ¼-inch thick. Use oval cookie cutters to cut two smaller ovals. Cut out a large mouth.
16. To assemble the eyes, use your fingers to lightly dampen the white ovals and place the blue smaller ovals over them. Dampen the blue ovals and place the black ovals over them. Gently press down.
17. Add frosting to a large bowl and add red food coloring. Mix smooth until frosting is thoroughly red.
18. Place one 9-inch cake rounds on serving plate and frost the top.
19. Place second 9-inch cake round over the first and frost the top.
20. Place the round cake over the two 9-inch rounds and lightly frost entire cake.
21. Place fondant eyes and mouth onto the semi-frosted cake.
22. Using a piping bag and grass tip (Wilton #233), pipe the rest of the frosting all over the cake. Gently squeeze and pull up frosting tip to produce hair like texture.
23. Press Red Vine Licorice Twists into the top of the cake and you're done!

Notes

* Ingredients for cake mix may vary depending on which brand you use.

Red Vines Giveaway Time!

This giveaway is now CLOSED.

Red Vines has offered one of my readers to win their own Red Vines Gift Bag, full of Red Vine goodies (valued at $50). This is perfect for any Red Vines enthusiast. Enter here:

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Giveaway Disclosure: Must be 18 or older and live in the United States. Giveaway ends October 31, 2016.

Disclosure: I was paid a stipend by Red Vines to share a Halloween recipe using their candies. The opinions I expressed are mine. If I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t blog about it! This post does contain affiliate links.