Spiderman Episode III - Spidey Gets Lit

In this, the final installment of the spidey saga, we find our hero, tossed in a box and transported to the far away land of Aliso Viejo.
Where..... (Queue sinister music)

Spidey Gets Lit

That right, but before spiderman was transported to Aliso Viejo, he got dusted. I figured since spidey's outfit/costume/uniform or whatever you want to call it, is made of spandex or some such type of material, it should have a little shine. So I had purchased Royal Blue and Christmas Red Luster dust (This was why a good Crusting ButterCream was so important).

So, super soft paintbrush in hand, a little luster dust was applied to the stars of the uniform.... (it doesn't really show up in the pictures at all, but I tried, in 2 different lighting conditions)

I should reveal that I had attempted to make Spiderwebs using a recipe that ddpie posted for me on the BakeSpace Forum....
It was a recipe for Gummi Bears, so I tried to reduce the un-flavored gelatin, hoping that would make it more flexible. But it was an exercise in folly... For with less gelatin, it was so runny that it was pooling as soon as it came out of the squeeze bottle... I tried waiting a little longer, but as it cooled, it just became clumpy & gloppy...
So I gave up and simply ate the mistakes... (The mistakes DID taste good; just like a gummi bear; which I will have to remember for the future)

At this point, sans webbing, our hero was transported to Aliso Viejo, and lit...

Mmmm Good Cake!!!!

And thus ends the tale of our hero....

The End!!!

I know, kind of anti-Climatic wasn't it...??

Mangia!!
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Spiderman Episode II - Spidey Gets Creamed

In this installment in our Spidey Saga....

Spiderman gets Creamed.

Normally, I am an avid user of Buttercreme. By that statement I mean, French, Italian and Swiss Buttercreme. I don't care for confectioners' sugar based frostings, cause I can taste the cornstarch. But, the Crusting Buttercreams, which are based on Confectioners' sugar, keep their shape better while withstanding higher temperatures and, in this case, as the name implies, form a crust. This is important for episode III

Now since I do not use these that often, I did not have a recipe that I could trust to crust properly, so I went and visited the Cake Oracle/Goddess of BakeSpace (via email, of course, I did not travel to Delphi) ddpie and asked if there was a fool proof Crusting Buttercream that I could use. She, in her infinite wisdom, pointed me to this recipe....

Peg's ButterCream Icing I

So being a student of cake.... I reveled in my new found knowledge and went on my happy way to go cream Spiderman.
That was, until I go home and realized I was short on vegetable shortening. So I went ahead and used a whole pound of butter instead. Don't get me wrong, I am not actually complaining per se, I prefer butter to hydrogenated oils (That's another Post), but I have found in baking, most of the time, if something calls for shortening instead of butter, there is usually a reason.
Such as:

1. Shortening contains less water (Butter is about 20% water, in the US and 15% in EU: This also means that when using shortening you are consuming more fat. Yeah, yet another post)

2. Shortening has a higher melting point and a higher smoke point (Not that smoke point matters for frosting)

3. Butter facilitates browning, shortening does not (Still not really an issue with frosting)

But, lacking time and motivation to run to the store, I decided to chance with butter. Since I was going to color it all and did not care so much if it was white, (especially since it had butter in it) I went ahead and used 1 tsp Chocolate Extract, 1 tsp Hazelnut Extract and 1/2 tsp Coffee Extract... All from Flavorganics.

Now we get to the coloring part; yes, honestly this is my bane... I am extremely sensitive to the flavor imparted by food dyes, especially Red #3 & #40. I even bought "No Taste" red.... HA!! No taste my behind!! Well, regardless of MY preference for non-dyed foods, Spiderman required Black, Red, Royal Blue and Sky blue.... (sigh)
So be it... Although I thought I would never get the red dark enough... It took a lot of color...

Now onto the creaming of spiderman... !!!

First the Background had to be frosted with the sky blue... Cool, no issues yet... (Or pictures for that matter, cause I was concentrating)

Then the black outlines and webs on his suit had to be done with a writing tip...
OK, So far so good.... (still no pictures)

Next I put his eyes on with more frosting to hold them in place...
Good.... Good ..... (but still no pictures)

Then things got interesting... I forgot how long the "star thing" takes....
Talk about Carpel-Tunnel Syndrome!!! And my Mother use to do this for our childhood Birthday Cakes... with arthritis!! Talk about a labor of love, lemme tell ya. Thanks mom!!

But eventually he was done for and set aside to crust... and now that I am looking at the picture again, I can see a 1 spot where I missed with the black and 1 spot where I missed with the red....


In our final episode...

Spidey Gets Lit

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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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