Yields:
12 Servings
Difficulty: Medium
Prep Time: 3 Hr 30 Mins
Cook Time:
30 Mins
Total Time:
4 Hr
Spiderweb Pumpkin Layer Cake
Fluffy layers of pumpkin spice cake are combined with orange and spice Swiss Meringue Buttercream and then decorated with a black icing spiderweb and cute little chocolate spiders. Cake recipe adapted from Life Love and Sugar. For most accurate results I recommend measuring by weight.
Ingredients
Adjust Servings
-
For the Cake
- For the Orange Spice Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- For the chocolate spiders
Instructions
- Place an oven rack on the lower-middle position and preheat the oven to 350 F/180 C. Grease 3 8-inch round cake pans. Line with parchment paper then grease and flour the parchment paper and sides of the pans.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugars together until very light and fluffy, about 3 to 4 minutes (don't shorten this step as it's integral to a fluffy cake).
- Add the eggs and egg white and mix on medium speed until light and airy, about 2-3 minutes.
- In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice.
- Add half of the flour mixture to the egg mixture and mix to combine.
- Add the pumpkin puree and mix until combined.
- Add the rest of the flour mixture and mix until combined.
- Give the batter a final stir by hand, incorporating any dry bits that may be on the bottom.
- Divide the batter evenly between the 3 prepared cake pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs. Let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes then remove from pans, remove parchment paper and let cool completely on racks, about 2 hours. For the Orange Spice Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- Place the egg whites and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Place over a pan of barely simmering water and heat to 160F/71C, whisking constantly.
- Carefully move the bowl to your stand mixer and beat over medium-high with the whisk attachment until the bowl is just warm to the touch, about 10 minutes. Move the bowl to the fridge and let the mixture cool until the centre reads between 72-75F/22-23 C, about 30 minutes.
- Return the bowl to the stand mixer and beat over medium-high for 1 minute to return the volume to the mixture.
- With the mixer on medium-low speed, add the butter, one pat at a time until all the butter is incorporated. The mixture will start to look curdled. That is okay. Then add the orange zest, spices, vanilla. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until smooth and fluffy, about 2 minutes. The mixture may be kept covered at room temperature for up to 12 hours. For the Chocolate Spiders
- To easily make the spider shapes, I found a page of spiders in a shape that I liked online and printed them out. Then I put them under a piece of parchment paper set on a baking sheet to trace over with my melted chocolate.
- In a microwave-safe bowl, heat 1/2 cup of chocolate callets in 20-second bursts, until melted. Transfer the chocolate to a squeeze bottle or cool slightly and transfer to a piping bag with a small round tip.
- Pipe the chocolate in the shape of a spider, then put one callet at the top for the head and an m&m underneath for the body. Let cool until hard. Spiders can then be stored in a container in the fridge. For Assembly:
- Trim the domed portion off of the top of your cakes so that they all have flat tops.
- Place one cake layer on your cake board and cover it with a thin layer of buttercream. Repeat with one more layer of cake and buttercream, then top with the 3rd layer, placed upside-down for even edges. Place the cake in the fridge to harden while you add colour to the buttercream.
- Return the buttercream to your stand mixer and add orange food colouring. Whip to combine, adding more colour as needed to achieve the desired colour of orange.
- Remove the cake from the fridge and spread the top and sides with a thin layer of orange buttercream to lock in the cake crumbs. Place the cake in the freezer for 15 minutes or the fridge for 30 minutes until the crumb coat has hardened.
- When the crumb coat has hardened, add another thin layer of buttercream over the top and sides of the cake and smooth to finish, filling any holes with more buttercream as necessary. Place the cake in the freezer to set for 30 minutes or the fridge for 1 hour.
- Once the buttercream has set, pipe a spiderweb over the top and sides of the cake with black icing. Then pipe a small dollop of black icing on the bottom of each spider and press lightly to secure around the spider web. Keep cake chilled until ready to serve.