Spiderman!
I've made a Spiderman cake before... years ago... with a Wilton shaped cake pan and the star tip pattern frosting... but this is the more grown up version of this cool comic book hero!
This cake was for a Sweet 16 party for a young lady who likes super heroes. I scoured Pinterest for ideas (I'm LOVING Pinterest by the way... aren't you?!) and found this design. I love the simplicity of it... not overdone or too advanced for me and fits perfectly with the Spiderman themed party!
I am a huge fan of marshmallow fondant ... it's easy to make, easy to work with and actually tastes good... but I find that whether you're tinting fondant or buttercream there are some colors that are just VERY hard to get right... and red is one of them. So, I headed down to the craft store to hit the cake aisle for some pre-made red fondant.
Now that I had all my supplies in hand it was time to get started. For this cake I did three layers of 10-inch cakes for the bottom tier... did a buttercream crumb coat and then covered it with my marshmallow fondant in blue. I used four wooden dowels in the center of this cake to support the second tier, which was two 8-inch cakes covered in the Wilton red fondant.
Once both cakes were covered I placed the red tier on top of the wooden dowels and started the webbing. I used a pre-made black Wilton tube frosting for the webbing (black is another color that's tough to tint dark enough).
I set aside a small piece of the red fondant and rolled it out into an oval/face shape and turned that into Spiderman's face for the top of the cake. This really added a nice detail and also works well to cover up the center of the spider web which can look a little messy/chaotic.
For the city effect I had to make a choice here... spend extra money on the pre-made black fondant and hope I can get the buildings to set enough to use on the sides of the cake or save the money and make a non-edible option. I went for construction paper, white paper, a highlighter and a little tape & glue. I was able to make the buildings, attach them together and place them around the bottom tier of the cake for a lot less money and still get a really cool effect.
I really enjoyed making this cake. I'm happy with how it turned out and loved the opportunity to work with fondant again. The more you work with it the more you learn & grow... so don't be intimidated... it's fun and not as hard as you might think!
