Itsy bitsy Spider Cake for Halloween

It’s time for Halloween and all the fun fiesta, yup, it’s the time for all the cooking and celebrating no matter which culture you are. Why not baking a theme cake to be your centerpiece of display? You can make this cake days ahead, and remember, there’s no limit to creativity and fun when doing it yourself.

I always love cake and so do our family and a big family. Thing is, it runs in our family to enjoy cakes that are not too sweet, more or less similar to the French style cake you know: soft whirl, creamy butter, etc… So getting one at the local grocery is out of the question, I mean they do cakes in batches and decorate to your limited options. The local bakery would work too, but hey, it’s more fun to do it at home and know exactly what’s going in there right? Okay enough with the chitchatting, let’s get to work.

If you’re a beginner in baking, I would recommend reading through all the directions, recipes, and guide before the attempt. Please note that for the cake there are lots of requirements that need to be followed exactly, e.g. get a kitchen scale for precise measurement.

Essentially, this project will divide into 4 parts to finish the so-called “Itsy bitsy Spider” theme cake. Some parts would require to cool down/resting time, so please read through and plan your time accordingly.

Chocolate Jelly filling

Since my son is a super fan of anything-jelly, I decide to make some jelly (the night before) to save on chilling time.

There are lots of methods, one is to melt chocolate and mix it with gelatin/water and the other is to use cocoa powder. I picked the latter since I have them ready at home and quicker.

In regard to the gelling agent, you can use a pre-pack Jello, gelatin, Agar, Carrageenan, etc. I usually use a mix of agar and carrageenan so the Jelly can be wiggly enough yet still holding its shape well.

Cake base

I’m using a modified version of an easy basic sponge cake that I have shared on here before. Personally I’m not a fan of Vanilla in anything, it just tastes too artificial to me, so fruit juice, green tea, natural fruit flavor oil, or chocolate(cocoa powder) are my usual choices.

If you want more cake, simply double or triple that recipe. For this cake, I followed all the steps up until the very end (before pouring into an 8-inches pan). At this point, divide the batter into 2 parts or whatever number of your choice and then color them individually. For this Halloween theme, I used orange and green to complement the pale purple of filling cream.

Orange whipped buttercream

This is just a quick buttercream that mixes off butter, sugar, and heavy cream. Nothing fancy to it, I may add a little orange juice or orange extract. The only thing to note is that both the butter and heavy cream have to be at the same temperature before mixing or they might start sweating.

Since the buttercream being used will be dyed orange mostly, I picked European butter with 85% fat content for their bold and smooth flavor. Still stock so many butters after the last batch of my review on the 11 unsalted butters for buttercream and baking.

To save time and making sure butter and whipped cream are off the same temperature, I left them both out on the counter before baking the cake. Once the cake is in the oven for baking, the butter should be soft enough to beat.

So set your time and plan ahead if you want to multitask.

Cover, glaze and decoration

Before assembling the cake, let’s make some decorative chocolate. For the spiders’ bodies, a couple of M&M or those milk malt balls would work.

Have a piece of parchment layout on a flat surface, place the bodies, then melt some chocolate and draw the heads, legs, and so on. You can make other pieces as well, color your chocolate if need. Let the chocolate seat and rest until completely hard, you can speed this up by refrigerating them.

After you got everything ready, let’s assemble. Level your cake, trim if needed. Assembling them together, don’t forget your pre-made jelly. You can make some chocolate ganache to adhere to all the jelly together, but since we’re using buttercream, they should behold well enough.

So after covering your cake and lightly smooth it, you can now stick all your edible ornament and replacing the web. This is the fun part, and I would recommend having your kids help out. They would have something to brag about at the party though. Melt some marshmallows and have them do the messy work. Just be careful and test the marshmallows’ temperature beforehand.

Finally, stick your spider on. Use fresh warm chocolate as glue.

Tada, enjoy your work, take a selfie for your Instagram or FB.