How to make a Spiderman cake!
It is Grant’s birthday today! He is turning the big 3! I can’t believe my lil’ spider boogie is 3 years old. Time flies, but I will say that he has lived life to the fullest! He is an ALL IN kinda guy.
ALL this boy wanted was a Spiderman cake and for us to sing happy birthday. Ahhh…the simple pleasures of a wide-eyed little boy. So, I followed through with my usual tradition of making whatever type of birthday cake my kids request.
First, I made a moist chocolate cake in a huge 22 inch pan. I doubled the recipe to a typical 13×9 size pan. It cooled overnight and then cut it in half with a bread serrated knife. Plop on a middle layer of yummy frosting. (He is a chocolate guy.)
I made cream cheese frosting and dropped about 8-10 drops of blue food coloring to make a light blue color. This layer below is the CRUMB frosting layer. Do you know what that is? It’s basically the layer where you capture all the crumbs to create a smooth surface for the REAL pretty layer on top. See the picture to the right? Those crumbs will harden into the icing as you refrigerate the whole cake for about 20 minutes to let it set.
Then, I put on the outside layer. It goes on perfectly and very CRUMB-free! Perfecto!
I use a ziploc plastic bag as my icing piper. Fill it up, push all the icing to one corner, snip snip with scissors, and whalah! Pipe the bottom with little dots to cover up the gap between the cake and the plate. (On the right, you’ll see that I did all this all during baby Brandon’s nap. It’s so simple!)
Next, the fun part. Sketch out the Spiderman face with a bamboo stick or toothpick. Don’t worry about making extra lines. You can smooth that out later. I traced those lines with black sparkly icing that I bought at the grocery store already in the tube.
For the RED icing, I discovered a GEM of an idea. I used COOKIE ICING that comes already in the piping bag. The cookie icing actually hardens into a glossy beautiful layer, so it really made the Spiderman face pop. It’s perfect! I will always be using COOKIE icing in the future for decorations on the cake. You have to try it out! (Tip: I piped on some cookie icing and then used a toothpick to smudge it all together. It has a gooey texture that works well for this method. It’ll make things cleaner and more precise.)
For the eyes, I took some white icing, put it in the plastic bag, and made little dots to make up the eye. It’s super cool to make it look like the tiny little parts of a real spiderman eye.
I surprised Grant after he woke up from his nap, so he can help with his own cake creation. He was so excited!!
The sweetest part of it all? Out of no where, Grant came up to me and said, “mama…thank you so much for Spiderman! Spiiiderman! I love you, mama!” Man, that one moment makes all the hassle and late night sifting worth every crumb. Happy Birthday, buddy!
