Before I had two boys it would never have occurred to me to put spiders on a cake. Thank god for little boys! Of course, there are deeper things that I have learned since parenting, but seeing the world through their eyes has made me happier, younger and sillier, which is such a gift. There is always their homework, cleaning rooms, taking baths, going to bed and eating spinach to keep us aware of our duties as parents, but sometimes it is about having fun. Spiders on a cake is just plain fun.
Although this cake is very simple to make, it took me two tries to get it right. That sounds more intimidating than it really is. The reason was not my fault, really. I read the recipe and thought to myself that it was WAY too much baking powder, but went ahead anyway. I figured the additional baking powder was because of the weight of the chocolate that is folded in. I mixed it up as written and when I looked in the oven as it baked it was bubbling, not something you really want to see as a cake rises. This is a classic sign of too much baking powder. If the ratio of flour and baking powder is off the leavening agent will create bubbles that are too big and the cake will end up falling due to the lack of structure. You want nice tight small bubbles to allow the cake to rise, but not too rapidly or it will collapse. Within 10 minutes I knew I should have trusted my instincts. I remade the cake with less baking powder and it turned out perfectly, the happy ending! I’ll talk more about how to use baking powder properly as I mix up the batter below.
Marble Cake from Lee Bailey’s Country Desserts
When a recipe, like this one, calls for sifted cake flour. You want to sift the flour into the dry measuring cup
and then sweep a knife over the top to level it out. (This is very different from the directions cake flour, sifted. In this case you would measure the cake flour by spooning the flour into the cup and then sifting it.)
To make cake:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 8-inch cake pans with parchment rounds and grease.
Sift together the dry ingredients and set aside.
Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy, about 3 minutes. (I bought a piece of equipment that I originally heard about from Abby Dodge on Twitter. It is the Beater Blade, which fits on my 5-quart kitchenAid mixer (they have them to fit all models) and is a brilliant combination of the paddle attachment and a rubber spatula. The idea is that you can mix your recipe without having to stop every few minutes to scrape down the bowl. It is very light weight, which has me concerned about longevity and it squeaks when it is in an empty bowl.)
Add the eggs and mix until well combined. Add the sour cream and vanilla, then mix well. Add the dry mixture in 3 batches, alternating with the milk.
The batter is nice and fluffy.
Split the batter in half and add the melted chocolate and instant coffee powder to one half.
place some of the white batter in the bottoms of the two 8-inch cake pans.
Add some of the chocolate batter, then more of the white and any chocolate that is left. It will all look like blobs of batter, not like marble.
Use a spoon to swirl the batter gently together. You don’t want to over due it or you will lose the definition of both the white and chocolate in the layers.
Bake for about 25-30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Once baked cool on a rack.
While the cake is baking, prepare the icing:
Add the instant coffee to the milk, set aside. Cream the butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the vanilla. Gradually add the confectioner’s sugar, alternating with the milk until the icing is thick and smooth. Add the melted white chocolate and beat until smooth.
Unmold the cooled cakes onto a cardboard round. Cover the layer with about 1/4 of the icing.
Place the second layer on top of the icing. As you can see my two layers don’t exactly match, despite both being 8-inch pans, they are different manufacturers and so they didn’t line up well.
To make sure that they will make a smooth cake I trimmed off just a touch. It was then a nice smooth even shape.
Use another 1/4 of the icing to do a crumb coat. This is a very thin layer of the icing that essentially traps the crumbs in place so that they are glued to the cake and won’t make a mess of the exterior of the cake. Freeze the cake for about 10 minutes to set the icing. Because of all the butter, it will harden quite quickly.
Now put about 1/3 of what is left of the icing on the top of the cake and spread it flat across the top.
Put the rest of the icing on the sides of the cake. Don’t worry about what it looks like, just try to get it on as evenly as possible. You will smooth it out next.
Once the icing is on the cake hold the spatula straight up and down, at a slight angle away from the cake. Turn the cake turn table and hold the spatula steady, don’t press, just hold steady, and it will slowly scrape a thin layer off the sides and make them smooth.
Once the sides are smooth then slide the spatula gently over the top of the cake to smooth it out, again you don’t want to apply too much pressure.
To make the spider web: In a double boiler melt the chocolate and the butter together until smooth. Use a parchment bag to pipe a thin spiral around the cake.
Use a tooth pick or skewer to draw lines from the center of the spiral out to the edge to create the web. Cover the rest of the chocolate ganache and allow it to cool to room temperature.
Melt the spider legs:
Melt the bittersweet chocolate in a double boiler. Fill another paper pastry bag about 1/3 full and pipe out the chocolate in the shape of the number 7 onto a silpat or parchment paper. Make sure you do a size that will fit the size of the spider body you intend to have. Pipe several extra in case you have breakage. Place the sheet into the freezer to set the chocolate.
Once the chocolate ganache is set up, this may take an hour or two, place it in a pastry bag fit with a round tip. Pipe a large ball of the ganache to create the spider’s body.
Use the melted chocolate to draw a line down the side of the cake and pipe a smaller spiders body there. Repeat with as many spiders as you like.
Remove the spider legs from the freezer and using a small spatula, lift up the legs and
place them on the spider, 4 on each side.
I used the remaining ganache to pipe a simple border along the bottom of the cake.
Happy Halloween!
Ingredients
- 1 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted
- 1 tsp powdered instant coffee
- 2 ¼ cups sifted cake flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temp
- ¾ cup sour cream
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 6 tbsp milk
White Chocolate Coffee Icing
- 3 oz white chocolate, melted
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened 1 stick
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 ½ cups confectioners sugar, sifted 1 box
- ¼ cup milk
- 1 tsp powdered instant coffee
Spider Web
- 2 oz bittersweet chocolate
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 8-inch cake pans with parchment rounds and grease.
- Sift together the dry ingredients and set aside.
- Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Add the eggs and mix until well combined. Add the sour cream and vanilla, then mix well. Add the dry mixture in 3 batches, alternating with the milk.
- Split the batter in half and add the melted chocolate and instant coffee powder to one half.
- Place some of the white batter in the bottoms of the two 8-inch cake pans. Add some of the chocolate batter, then more of the white and any chocolate that is left. It will all look like blobs of batter, not like marble. Use a spoon to swirl the batter gently together.
- Bake for about 25-30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Once baked cool on a rack.
White Chocolate Coffee Icing
- Add the instant coffee to the milk, set aside. Cream the butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the vanilla. Gradually add the confectioner’s sugar, alternating with the milk until the icing is thick and smooth. Add the melted white chocolate and beat until smooth.
- Unmold the cooled cakes onto a cardboard round. Cover the layer with about 1/4 of the icing. Place the second layer on top of the icing.
- Use another 1/4 of the icing to do a crumb coat. This is a very thin layer of the icing that essentially traps the crumbs in place so that they are glued to the cake and won’t make a mess of the exterior of the cake. Freeze the cake for about 10 minutes to set the icing. Because of all the butter, it will harden quite quickly.
- Now put about 1/3 of what is left of the icing on the top of the cake and spread it flat across the top. Put the rest of the icing on the sides of the cake. Don’t worry about what it looks like, just try to get it on as evenly as possible. You will smooth it out next.
- Once the icing is on the cake hold the spatula straight up and down, at a slight angle away from the cake. Turn the cake turn table and hold the spatula steady, don’t press, just hold steady, and it will slowly scrape a thin layer off the sides and make them smooth. Once the sides are smooth then slide the spatula gently over the top of the cake to smooth it out, again you don’t want to apply too much pressure.
Spider Web
- In a double boiler melt the chocolate and the butter together until smooth. Use a parchment bag to pipe a thin spiral around the cake.
- Use a tooth pick or skewer to draw lines from the center of the spiral out to the edge to create the web. Cover the rest of the chocolate ganache and allow it to cool to room temperature.
Congratulations for coming out as one of the top blogs! I am not surprised really, as you shouldn’t be with such great recipes etc! Thanks for sharing the ingredients for your award winning cake too!
I love your choc. devil’s food cake recipe. Can you tell me if you have an equally good, moist yellow cake recipe?
Love your cake, though I ‘m not decided on the spiders (even though they’re chocolate!). LOL
I love it, it’s so cool!
Hey. I just wanted to let you know that I made this cake today for a friend’s birthday. It was a big hit! Thanks for this post.
That is the cutest ever and looks yummy too. I’m sending the link to my friend whose son just finished a spider project – they would love it.
Can’t wait to read more about baking powder. I’m so not the baker but am wanting to learn.
I am not sure, I did bake them a tad bit longer. I have some old stainless steel cake pans from the 80s, could it be that they cook in a way that would be more concentrated form the outside toward the middle? What type cake pans do you use?
My soon to be, 29 year old son was born on Halloween. So, I am baking the cake to take to him this weekend. He is not a dessert person, but my daughter-in-law is. So, we will enjoy the cake for him.
Hands down– you are the best baking blog. The stories, the pictures, the instructions, the recipes. I don’t bake much, but you’ve inspired me to try several cakes that have all turned out. My fav is still the devil’s food. perfect every time. thanks zoe!
Hi Sandra,
How wonderful! I’ve been thinking about you and your cakes all day! What do you think made the difference?
Thanks! Zoë
Ta-dah! This time they turned out well. Thank you so much for your help.
Hi Sandra,
I will be surprised if that will makes a significant difference, but please keep me posted.
The other thing to try is tapping the pan several times on the counter before placing in the oven. This drives the larger bubbles to the surface and they are the ones that threaten collapse.
Thanks! Zoë
There is one more thing – I used the sour cream and milk that I had on hand. The sour cream was low fat and the milk was 1%. Could that have added more water and not allow the cake to cook in the alloted time? I will try again with regular sour cream and whole milk.
Hi Sandra,
Thank you for the details, I think I will change the instructions adn be more specific about the marbeling so that others don’t have this problem.
Thank you for persevering! I enjoy the process so much, but I know it can be so frustrating to have a cake fall. I appreciate the feedback.
Zoë
I decided to cut into the cake to see what happened and it was just not done in the middle. On the layer that fell the most, there was a a bit of chocolate on the top.
I had inserted a toothpick into the center to check for doneness and it came out clean. I am going to try again.
I am very new to food blogs. I really do enjoy your website. Thank you for the inspiration!
Oh dear Sandra,
I’m sorry to hear that! It happened to me as well, but once I fixed the amount of baking powder, they came out just fine.
One thing that comes to mind with a marble cake is the distribution of the chocolate layer. Because of the weight of the chocolate it needs to be spread thin throughout. In other words if there is a big splotch of the chocolate right in the middle of the cake it may cause it to fall. Do you think this may have played a part?
Please keep me posted, I’m also very curious to figure this out! I really like the flavor, but it seems it should not be so mysterious a process.
Thank you for letting me know!
Zoë
Hello – I just took the cakes out of the oven and they both fell in the middle -one quite a bit more than the other. What could be the cause of this? I am still going to finish the cake, but would like to know for future reference.
FYI – They came out of the pan just fine and everything else seems OK.
Hi Jackie,
I used the Italian Roast, but honestly I think they both would have given enough flavor! The thing I liked about it was how fine the crystals are so they melt easily.
Thanks, Zoë
Hi
Which flavor of Via did you use Italian Roast or Colombia?
Congratulations on your nomination. It’s well deserved.
Hi Sharon,
It has a very different feel than the Outrageous Mocha Buttercream, but not grainy. The trick is the milk and making sure that you mix it long enough for the sugar to sort of melt with the milk and butter. Having said that, it is not nearly as satiny as the buttercream!
Thanks, Zoë
Just a doubt Zoe…when you add Confectioner’s Sugar for frosting a cake, does it not give the frosting a grainy feel? Does it feel as smooth and satiny on the tongue as the Outrageous Mocha buttercream? Thanks…
Good to know about baking powder. And, such a cute cake! The spiders are great.
Congrats on the nomination! I’ve cast my vote.
Spiders seriously creep me out, but I think I’d brave the thought for a slice of that cake.
This looks so good! My mom’s birthday is on Halloween, and this would be perfect for her!
Whoops, I meant to say “’cause I KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO take all those.” Sorry, you can go ahead and delete that other comment. Or edit it, whatever.