The Spider Man Cake

So it’s my little brothers 21st Birthday on the 31st of December but as you all know, this is a very inconvenient date for a Birthday celebration. He has chosen to have his party 2 weeks before (last night) so that everyone can make it. He has also chosen to have a Spider Man cake for his Birthday so Mum and I have set off to recreate his 6th Birthday cake. I made two matching spider cakes as well because there is going to be about 150 people attending and I some how doubt that the Spider Man head will feed even 20 people.

I know that I have missed a few posts and I feel as though I am missing a piece of myself as a result. Weird how something that you have only been doing for a little over a year can be missed so much over a few days. I have been a super mega stress head this week, trying to organise things for the party and bake these cakes. It takes its toll on a girl. My main problem I think though has been not getting to the gym. I know very well that if I skip the gym that my anxiety will get out of hand and I will become a hyperventilating mess. Hence why I choose not to drink at the open bar last night and managed to get up for a 9:30am pump class after arriving home at 2:00am.

I don’t have too much of a tutorial on this cake but I have tried to explain in the recipe. There are amazing tutorials  on YouTube for this little baby if you are interested! To make the cakes a bit higher (and a bit more delicious) I have filled the centres of two with cookies. One has chopped oreos and one has chopped timtams. The third was an orange and poppyseed syrup cake My favourite!

That’s my little brother with his cakes. haha. Not so little though! To make the little spiders, I made them like the ones I made for my Halloween cookies. Check them out

I think everyone was very suprised at the amount of food consumed at the party. Most 21st parties, the kids tend to not eat, just drink. I was very excited when people started tucking into the cakes. I got awesome feedback and was mainly suprised at the amount of girls that had cake. I managed to snap this cute photo of my Nan and Pop slow dancing to techno. . .

Despite having 8 brothers, I only have one full brother. This is a photo of us all together. The family tree gets a bit confusing! Mum, Ty, Me and Dad

Follow my lead. . .

Ingredients

• 250g butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups caster sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
• 8 x 59g free range eggs
• 3 cup self raising flour
• 1 cup milk

Icing

• 375g butter, softened
• 400g icing sugar mixture
• 1 tablespoon vanilla essence
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 tablespoon water
• Wilton food colouring gels – black and red
• 1 packet ready roll icing
• 1 tablespoon pure icing sugar

1. Preheat a fan forced oven to 170C and line a 20cm x 30cm rectangle baking tin with canola oil spray and baking paper.
2. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until lightened in colour and thickened.
3. Add the vanilla and then the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Fold through the flour and milk until completely combined. Pour into the cake tin and cook for 55 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Allow to cool on a cake rack.
5. Place the cake onto a chopping board and cut an oval shape using a serrated bread knife. You may want to cut out an oval shape on a piece of paper and then cut the cake.
6. Place the cake onto the cake board and cut the cake in half horizontally and spread the lower layer with 1/4 cup of buttercream icing. Spread the oreos evenly across the surface of the buttercream and place the top layer of the cake on top.
7. To make the icing, cream the butter for 5 minutes on high. Add the icing sugar mixture, vanilla, milk and water and cream for a further 5 minutes.
8. Crumb coat the cake with the icing by spreading a thin layer of buttercream icing over the whole cake. Spread evenly using a pallet knife and place into the fridge to set for 30 minutes.
9. Remove 1/2 cup of icing and add enough black food colouring to turn the icing black. Place into a piping bag with a #2 piping tip. Add the red food colouring to the remaining icing until it is bright red.
10. Evenly ice the whole cake with a pallet knife using the red icing. To make the edges smoother, once you have finished icing the cake, run a large pallet knife under hot running water, dry with paper towel and while the pallet knife is still hot, spread the pallet knife over the cakes surface.
11. Pipe the spider webs onto the cake using the pattern shown in the picture. Using a rolling pin, roll a small amount of ready roll icing out onto a clean surface and dust with pure icing sugar. Spread to 3mm thick and then cut the eye shapes out of the icing. I cut one and then used the first one as a stencil to cut the second. Place onto the Spider-man face and pipe black icing around the eyes.
12. Chew.