Halloween Spider Cake
Halloween is the perfect time to go all out with your baking, and this Vegan Halloween Spider Cake is the ultimate showstopper for your spooky celebrations. With three soft, fluffy sponge layers sandwiched together with creamy vegan butter icing and decorated with a creepy crawly spider web design, it’s a cake that’s as fun to look at as it is to eat. Best of all, it’s entirely plant-based, so everyone can enjoy a slice of this festive treat.
The base recipe is a simple vanilla sponge, light and tender with just the right amount of sweetness. However the best part about this cake is its flexibility. If you prefer, you can use your favourite three layer vegan cake recipe. Whether that’s chocolate, red velvet, or even pumpkin spice, just skip ahead to the decorating stage. No matter what flavour you choose, the Halloween decorations will transform it into something magical (or should we say… a little bit spooky!).
The icing is where things really come together. To get the right consistency for smooth frosting and piping, it’s important to use vegan butter block rather than spread. This gives you a firm, stable buttercream that’s easy to work with. Before tinting the icing black to pipe your spider web, you can set aside a small amount of plain buttercream. That way, you’ll have some ready to mix with gel food colouring of your choice if you want to personalise the cake by writing a Halloween message across it.
For decoration, a piped spider web on top of the cake makes the perfect centerpiece. Down the sides, pipe spiders, then finish with a scattering of Halloween sprinkles. You can use any you like, but if you’re keeping the cake fully vegan, be sure to check the label. I used a ready made mix of orange and black sprinkles for that classic Halloween look.
Whether it’s the centrepiece for a party, a bake sale showstopper, or simply a fun seasonal bake to share with friends and family, this Vegan Halloween Spider Cake is guaranteed to impress and delight all ages.
Halloween Spider Cake
Difficulty: Medium16
servings1
hour50
minutes30
minutes2
hours20
minutesIngredients
- For the Sponge
600g Self Rising Flour
375g Caster Sugar
2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
112g Golden Syrup
173g Vegetable Oil
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
600ml S0ya Milk
- For the Icing
500g Vegan Butter Block at room temp
1kg Icing Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Black Gel Food Colouring
- For the Decoration
Halloween Sprinkles
Directions
- For the Sponge
- Preheat the oven to 160ºc/320ºf and grease and line 3 8 inch round cake tins.
- Mix the self raising flour, caster sugar and bicarbonate of soda in a large mixing bowl or stand mixer.
- In a large jug mix the golden syrup, vegetable oil, vanilla extract and soya milk.
- Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until a smooth batter forms.
- Divide evenly between the baking tins and bake for 30 minutes or until golden. The sponge should spring back when lightly pressed. Allow to cool completely.
- For the Icing
- Beat the vegan butter block and vanilla extract with a stand or hand mixer until pale and smooth.
- Sieve in the icing sugar and mix until well combined.
- To assemble the cake trim off the tops of the cakes so that they are level. Put a small blob of icing onto a cake board and put one layer of sponge on top.
- Spread icing over the sponge layer and place the next layer on top. Repeat for the final layer.
- Cover the cake in a very thin layer of icing using a palette knife and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
- To Decorate
- Coat the cake with a smooth layer o the icing using a palette knife and cake scraper, making sure to leave some icing for the spider web.
- While the icing is still wet, use your hand to brush the halloween sprinkles up the side of the cake to create a ring of sprinkles around the bottom of the cake.
- Colour the remaining icing black with eh black gel food colouring (if you want to write on the cake save a small amount). Add a little at a time to get the desired colour.
- Put the black icing into a piping bag with a small round piping tip.
- Use the piping bag to pipe a line across the cake, diving it into two halves. Continue the line down either side of the cake to about halfway down the cake.
- Make another line at a right angle to split the cake into quarters and continue half way down the sides of the cake. Repeat twice more to divide the cake into even eighths.
- Make spiders at the ends of each piece of web but piping a circle and adding eight legs each.
- Working from the outside in, join the web together by piping a slightly curved line between each point (as pictured below). Repeat until you reach close to the centre.
- If you want to add writing now is the time to do that by adding gel food colouring in a colour of your choice to the small amount of icing that is left and using a small piping tip again.
