Calaveras Mini-Cakes

What You Need:

• Skull cake pan (we made mini-cakes, but a big skull cake would be fun too!)
• Oven
• Cake mix
• Frosting
• Decorative icing
• Candy eyes
• Round-shaped candies (leftover Halloween candy works great!)
• Sprinkles
• Cupcake pan (optional)
• Cupcake holders (optional)

What You Do:

1. Set the oven to 350° and grease your skull pan well with butter or margarine.
2. Mix the ingredients for your cakes as outlined in the box's instructions. Of course, if you're up for it, you can make the cake batter from scratch, but we opted for a store-bought cake mix.
3. Pour the batter into the cake pan.
4. Once the temperature has reached 350°, place the pan in the oven.
5. While your cakes are baking, help your kid learn a little bit about Dia de los Muertos. Here are a few printables to help:
   • Dia de los Muertos Coloring
   • Calavera Mask
   • The History of Dia de los Muertos
   • Sugar Skull Coloring Page
   • Day of the Dead Reading Comprehension
   • Day of the Dead Crossword
   • Dia de los Muertos Art
   • Dia de los Muertos Frame
6. Different pans mean different cooking times! After about 25–30 minutes check to see if the cakes are fully baked by sticking a toothpick in the center of each one. If the toothpick comes out clean, your cakes are ready.
7. Take the cakes out of the oven and let them cool.
8. When the cakes are cool to the touch, place a large plate or tray upside-down over the skull pan. Flip the pan and plate over and remove the pan so that the skull-shaped cakes are now sitting on the plate.
9. Carefully frost your skull cakes with a thin layer of frosting. We used white, but you could also use black and orange frosting for Halloween-themed cakes!
10. Use candy and icing to create eyes and a mouth for each of your skulls, and then decorate the cakes however you'd like. Make sure to fill in the blank spaces with sprinkles!