Well, here it is…my last Halloween blog post for this year! Since my past few tutorials have been witch themed, I decided to switch things up a bit. I’m going to show you probably the easiest Halloween tutorial yet…and it involves something that for me, is WAY more scary than vampires or witches— SPIDERS! EEK! ;0) —
Okay, so first you’ll need to grab a cake and frost it. I frosted a six inch cake with vanilla buttercream frosting and went a bit rustic with the texturing. “Rustic” is code for I don’t feel like smoothing today. ;0) To do this, I just spun my cake on the turntable as I pressed my small tapered spatula to the surface of the icing. Takes about 1 minute…
Next, I melted some black Wilton Candy Melts and spooned them into a piping bag fitted with a small round tip. (I used a Wilton tip 2). I proceeded to pipe lots and lots of spiders onto a waxed paper lined cookie sheet.
Spiders galore! Vary your sizes and styles for more fun…and make extra. With thin legs, there’s always a chance of breakage.
Once the spiders are ready, pop them in the freezer or fridge. I chilled mine in the freezer for approximately 8-10 minutes. Chilly chocolate spiders are much stronger for placement than room temperature ones!
When the spiders are firm and your cake is ready to decorate, remove the tray from the freezer. Run your hand beneath the waxed paper to help release any stubborn spiders individually.
Pipe a small amount of buttercream on the backs of your spiders before “gluing” them to the cake.
I loved this part! If your spiders begin to soften on the cookie sheet while you work, just refreeze for a few minutes. Maybe our kitchen counters were unusually warm from the lights, but I had to chill the tray a couple of times to keep the spiders nice and firm.
Some of my spiders became black widows with a little dot of red buttercream (tinted with Americolor Super Red & piped with a Wilton 2 tip.) — I took some artistic license here… some of my spiders are of the very rare black widow daddy long legs variety ;0)
You can see that I added a little mound of buttercream on the top edge of my cake, so that I could press the top spider into it. It almost looks like he is floating ;0)
Ready for the creepy crawly grand reveal? ………….
Thanks for stopping by the blog today! Now, go make some spiders!
This is so cute!!!
Oooooh I’ve gotta bake sale to make a cake for. I think I’m doing this one!
cute
It reminds me of one of my favorite movies: Arachnophobia! Love it!
Wow!!!!! Very nice :)
It is really beautiful fasinated me went over 4 times
Just LOVE!!
Arachniphobia! Love this :)
Awesome! I can’t find anywhere locally to sell me black chocolate melts but I got some dark chocolate and I think that will still look cool. Hay spiders are brown too right? Thanks for this!
I love it! I’m going to make some of those to add to some cupcakes for tomorrow night!
QUE COSAS MAS LINDAS HACES.
LASTIMA QUE NO VIVO AHI, PORQUE SERIA TU ALUMNA
FELICIDADES!!!!
Thanks everybody! @Tawna~ I agree–brown spiders would be just as creepy! :0) —
Why can’t real spiders be as cute as these?
Can this be creepy and beautiful at the same time? I love your cakes!
Love this idea!!
It gives me the shivers looking at it but, how clever, the kids will love it….thank you. xx
very cool love them
LOVE this cake!!
I hate spiders but this is WICKED!!!!! I love the idea!!!!
Well this is so CREEPY COOL!!!!!! I had to tell you that we made little mini cakes using this idea yesterday and Sophia and I had a blast!!! It was easy for her to pipe the spiders so she could help out – fun! We had halloween movie night (Hocus Pocus and Casper!) and then our spider mini cakes!!!!! YOU ROCK!
Fantastic spiders! I love them
More comments!! Thanks so much ;0) – @Trisha- So excited that you & Sophia made them! Chocolate spider cakes & Halloween movies…Perfect! ;0)
Just finished my spidery cake for my son’s birthday – Séan is a Halloween Baby! Adapted it a little with a bit of green edible spray. Had a lot of fun! Thanks Melissa and BeBe!
Hooray! So glad, Janice! Happy birthday to your son!
I melted chocolate Almond Bark, but before I can squeeze it through the tip it seems to cool to quickly and it clogs. I’ve used the white before for lettering and it worked fine…this is my 1st attempt with the dark.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated?
After searching for only a minute, I believe I found my answer! Obviously, I asked too soon :oP I do believe I overheated it…I just read that chocolate can seize up when overheated…I’m pretty sure that’s what happened! Will try again tomorrow being more attentive to the melting time…Still any suggestions are always welcome…thanks!
Hi Holly! Yes, try again and see if you have better luck. Is there any chance that your piping tip had any moisture in it (for instance, if you washed just before)? That would cause seizing. Another common cause of seizing is if you used coloring gel to tint your chocolate. It doesn’t sound like this applies to you though…but just in case, candy coloring or powders can color chocolate effectively, but regular coloring gels cause seizing.
Finally, while I like to use a piping tip… others just take a small snip off of the pastry or parchment bag . Just thought I’d throw that in!
Good luck!
this is very nice blog this is my favorite.
cake boxes
So cute. Love it!
That would be a cute idea to use ants for a picnic theme. :)
@Sadie~ I like that ! ;0)
this cake is great, was wondering do you have a tutorial on stacked book cakes
Thanks
Hi Deborah, Yes, click on Our Cakes under the Video Tutorial heading. There is a tutorial entitled Stack of Books.
This specialty cake is so simple, but the spiders add so much to it! I will have to bookmark this for next year!
Just came across your tutorial and its fabulous! I will definitely try it this year, thanks.
I will make this for my Halloween Bunko party!
Must make this for the upcoming holiday. You mentioned using a 6″ cake……it looks sooo tall on the internet. How many layers was this cake? Can’t wait to try.