Spiderman Episode I - Spidey Gets Baked

It is that time of year again, my Godson's birthday. he will be 6 this weekend. Since his first birthday, it has been my pleasure to make his birthday cake every year. Everything from an Inchworm, to Elephant, to Zoo Train, to the space shuttle last year (My first MMF experience, and it had wheels.) This year he decided on Spiderman. Yes, a person, albeit fictional, but none the less, a human subject for a cake. I am much better at animals and inanimate objects, I will be honest. So I was suffering from extreme lack of inspiration.

I thought about just doing his masked head. Seemed like a good idea until I realized I would be presenting a 6 year old with Spiderman's head on a plater for his birthday. Thats a little disturbing.

Then I thought of making a building and buying an action figure to climb it. That seemed like it might have worked until I realized I was going to have to drive, with said cake, to Aliso Viejo or Redondo Beach. OK, I will be honest, California may have a lot of freeways, but upkeep seems to be incomprehensible to CalTrans. Inevitably, it would end up looking like it went through the San Francisco earthquake by the time I got there.

So I "cheated", I went and bought one of THOSE pans, you know the ones, the little Hello Kitty, or Superman or Dora the Explorer... A pan I will more than likely NEVER use again but will have to store for the rest of my life, because as soon as I DO get rid of it, someone is going to ask if I still have it, because for some strange reason, only known to archangels... they need to make a Spiderman cake.

Life is funny like that.



Oh Yeah, and what's with the JAZZ Hands........ ???

Anyway, I will be presenting Spiderman in 3 parts, cause I loved the movies, and yes.... I AM that geeky.

Tonights heart pounding episode...

Spidey gets baked...

This is the cake, fresh from the oven (Chocolate)

The cake baking was pretty uneventful... I shortening'ed up the pan, cake floured it and baked the cake. It did rise a little too much in the center, but that was easily trimmed away before I unmoulded it and Voila!!!! I only lost a little of the crumb on the fingers, but I kind of suspected that would happen.

OK, I refuse to follow directions. Yes, to some that is no big surprise. According to the convenient instructions printed on the back of the pan liner, I am suppose to use frosting for his eye pieces.... No, Uh uh.
I was going to use gum paste, but I found out, at 9:00 pm, that my paste had turned to stone. So I ran to the store and grabbed some Marzipan, came home, rolled it out to about 1/32 so it would be malleable enough to mold over the eyes.

Made a quick pattern of the eyes from the pan, and cut them out with a knife.

(Store any unused marzipan in a ziploc bag in the refrigerator for 2 weeks or in the freezer for 3 months)

I did 2 pieces per eye, so the center can be covered with silver leaf and the outer rim can be painted black.

Yes, He looks more like Venom than Spiderman.

Here the inner pieces are silver leafed. I am waiting for the rims to dry before painting black tomorrow evening.

ooooOOooooo.... S - H - I - N - E - Y ! ! ! ! !

Stay tuned for our next exciting episode...

Spidey Gets Creamed

(ButterCreamed that is)

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