Jack Skellington Pull Apart Cupcakes (with Video) (2024)

These easyJack Skellington Pull Apart Cupcakes make the perfect Halloween party dessert! Movie-inspired Nightmare Before Christmas cupcakes are a must for fans of the classic film!

Jack Skellington Pull Apart Cupcakes

A couple weeks ago, our family had the real treat of experiencing Disneyland during HalloweenTime. I didn’t know that this was a thing before, but WOW, was it amazing!

HalloweenTime features gorgeous fall-themed decorations, Halloween and pumpkin-flavored foods, and many of the Disney characters dress up in Halloween costumes. We had a blast taking in all the sights and trying as many of the festive foods as possible.

Related: Click here to see our Disneyland HalloweenTime Food Tour!

The Nightmare Before Christmas was my sister’s favorite movie as a kid, so the ONE thing she really wanted to do was track down Jack Skellington for a meet & greet.

Jack and his love interest Sally were a popular duo, especially during Halloween season, so there was a little wait to meet them. However, it was worth the wait for my sister to talk to her favorite characters and get a photo together. This was our last day at HalloweenTime and the perfect ending to our Disneyland adventure!

Now that we’re home, I think we’ve all been in a little bit of what I’ve dubbed “Disney withdrawal.” Disneyland is so magical that it’s easy to miss all the excitement!

To bring a little bit of that Disney Halloween magic to our kitchen, we decided to make a Jack Skellington Pull Apart Cupcake Cake. It’s a fun Halloween party dessert surprise– it looks like a cake, but is actually a lot of individual cupcakes!

Jack Skellington Cupcakes Ingredients

For your convenience, we’ve included shop-able ad links to some of the products we used to make our Nightmare Before Christmas cupcakes. Our full disclosure policy is available here.

• 1 Box chocolate cake mix
• 2 cans white buttercream frosting
• 1 can chocolate buttercream frosting
• Black gel food coloring (we love gel food coloring because it creates such vibrant colors!)
• Halloween cupcake liners
• Reusable decorating bags
• Black food coloring
• Muffin tin

How to Make aJack Skellington Pull Apart Cupcake Cake

First, watch our quick video demo (1:20 min) to see how we made these Nightmare Before Christmas cupcakes. Then keep reading for photo step by step instructions. A printable recipe card is available at the bottom of the post.

Click video to play:

TIP: To save time, we made our cupcakes using box cake mix. This should make approximately 2 dozen cupcakes.

Arrange your cupcakes in a circle shape. It doesn’t have to be a perfect circle, as Jack’s head is not perfectly round.

Scoop white frosting into a piping bag with a wide opening and apply enough frosting to cover the surface of all the cupcakes. Use an offset spatula to smooth frosting so that you can’t see any of the cupcake below. It takes quite a bit of frosting!

In a mixing bowl, combine your frosting with a 5-10 drops of black food coloring and whisk until your frosting is a rich black color.

Scoop black frosting into a piping bag with a smaller tip. Draw the outline of Jack’s eyes and mouth, then fill in the details. Use your spatula to smooth.

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Nightmare Before Christmas Cupcakes Recipe (Printable Copy):

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More of our favorite Halloween recipes:

Halloween Bento Lunch for Kids

Jack ‘O Lantern Mini Orange Halloween Cupcakes

Slime Cookies