Spiderman Cake

I was totally surprised when Gus asked for a Spiderman cake for his birthday.  (Hans can't be the only one in this family that is sarcastic.)  Gus tried to get me to make a Spiderman cake with "all of the super heroes on it. Even Larry Boy."  And, unfortunately I had to tell him that I was not talented enough to pull that off.  But I promised I would do my best to make a cool Spiderman cake.

I decided this would be a great time to use my airbrush.

 The finished product.

I learned a lot doing this cake.  I was just about to give up on the whole cake thing because the cakes NEVER came out like I envisioned them.  Cakes would fall apart when I would try to put the layers together and fondant is not necessarily my friend.   So, I'm going to share a few tips I learned, and re-learned this time.

1. Cake is always easier to cut the day after it is made.  This is something I already knew, but that means you have to actually make the cake the day before you want to put it together.  I usually try to do a cake marathon day where I'm baking and decorating in a few hours and I'm always disappointed.  Maybe this time the lesson will stick.

2. After filling the cake I ice the cake.  This is called a crumb coat.  This time, completely by accident, the frosting was very thick and a little on the dry side.  This actually made the crumb coating easier!

3.  Letting the cake chill after crumb coating and before putting the fondant on makes life so much easier.

Even though fondant is not really my friend, I use it.  I know I just need to spend more time working with it.  I use it because this allows me to have bright, rich colors on the cake with out having my kids consume all the dyes.  The fondant is edible, but most people peel it off.  I'm not sure I've actually met anyone who likes fondant.  So my kids know to peel off the outer layer and enjoy the cake with the crumb coating.  Everyone's happy.

I just had to get a picture in here that showed how flat this cake was.  No lumps, bumps or sinking in the middle!

The birthday boy loved his cake.  Which makes this one a success!