I saw several versions of this Spider-Man cake, and I thought the crawling hand was a cool effect. But something isn't quite right with my rendition. Maybe his hand isn't big enough, or maybe his head needs to protrude a little more?? I'm not sure what the problem is, but 3 year old Clayton loved it nonetheless.
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I started this cake by making a bunch of fondant cutters. I had an outline cutter for the entire figure, one cutter for the individual body parts, and one cutter for the spider web impressions on the red parts of Spider-Man. I also had cutters for the number "3" and the alphabet in the Spider-Man font: Homoarakhan. I used my Creality Ender 3 v2 3D printer to make the cutters. If you want to read an intro into 3D printers for cookie cutters you can read my post HERE.
The cutters made it easier to shape the Spider-Man figure, but honestly you could just use a paper template. The only time the cutter was really helpful was making the spider web impression on the red fondant.
First up I made the "3" topper because this needed a day to harden. I pressed the web impression cutter into the red fondant, and then cut it with the "3" cookie cutter. I added a little Tylose power (also called Gum-Tex and CMC) to the fondant which makes the fondant harden. The more Tylose you add to the fondant the harder the fondant will become. This is a cheaper alternative to using gum paste.
Here is a sketch of the web that I sent to my 3D printer to make the web embosser.
Then I moved onto the crawling Spider-Man. These are the sketches I used to make the cookie cutters.
I cut the entire shape out of black fondant to make a backing piece.
I cut out the blue fondant sections and placed them on top of the black fondant piece. (After assembly, I realize I cut the thigh muscles in the blue fondant too deep. I should have made just a slight impression instead of a deep cut.)
And then I cut another head out of red fondant and stacked it on top. This layering makes the head stick out farther than the rest of the body. I also added the eyes at this point.
Here I've placed the second head (with the eyes) on the main body. I've also placed the Spider-Man on a 9" foam cake dummy so it would harden with a curve that matched the 9" cake. Notice that I also cut the fingers off the main body. The fingers will be positioned once the Spider-Man is on the cake.
To accentuate the web markings in the red fondant, I dusted them with some black petal dust. I used a tiny paint brush that I dipped in black petal dust and then ran the paint brush in the web lines.At this point I left the Spider-Man to harden a bit and started on the cake itself. It is iced in white American Buttercream, and then I dabbed on bits on black icing to give the cake a rustic look. It almost looks like a naked cake.
I carefully placed my hardened Spider-Man on the front of the cake.
Then I started working on the hand. I cut out the hand....
and pushed in the web marks.
Like with the main body I used the paint brush dipped in black petal dust to accent the web lines.
Then the hand gets attached to the main body. Before positioning the hand, I added a blob of red fondant to give the hand a curved look and to keep it from collapsing against the cake drum.
Here is the hand attached to the main body with the fingers "crawling" across the cake drum.
I placed the 3 topper on the cake, and because I thought the cake drum looked too plain, I added some splotches of white icing on the black drum.
Later I decided I didn't like all the white splotches, so I scraped some of it off.
The letters for the birthday boy's name went on next. I rolled the fondant into a wedge shape, so the top was thicker than the bottom, and then I cut out the letters.
When I scraped off the excessive white buttercream, I also added what is supposed to be a web coming out of Spider-Man's hand. The web should be white, but I figured it wouldn't show up against the white cake, so I made it black. So again, here is the finished cake. Hummm... I just don't know if I like it.
