Scare up some fun with this spooky Halloween Spiderweb Cake. It involves basic piping techniques, so it’s easy enough for beginner cake decorators!

Do you have a Halloween party in your future? Scare up some fun with this spooky Halloween Spiderweb Cake! It’s so easy, even the beginner cake decorator can do it. Just watch the video tutorial further down in this post.

You can use any cake recipe you like, as long as it’s a round layered cake. The one pictured below is Rose Levy Berenbaum’s Downy Yellow Butter Cake from The Cake Bible.

You can also use whatever icing flavor you like. I used a basic Easy Swiss Buttercream (recipe below), but you can use American Buttercream, cream cheese frosting, or any other white/off-white frosting. For coloring the icing for the spiderweb, I strongly recommend Americolor gel paste food coloring. With regular liquid food coloring, you need to add far too much to achieve true black, and it affects the consistency of your icing.

You’ll also need a straw (I used a blue/white striped paper straw, but plastic drinking straws are fine), and a ruler or some other object with a thin, rigid straight edge. You’ll use these to create a template in your icing that you’ll trace over with the black frosting. To pipe your frosting, you’ll need a piping bag, a small plain round tip (I used a Wilton #3 tip) and a coupler. A turntable is nice to have, but not essential.

The cake should sit on a cardboard cake round a bit smaller than the cake itself, so it remains invisible. This will help with transferring the cake from the turntable (or plate on which you decorate it) to the cake stand. I find it easiest to use a cake lifter to make the transfer.

Finally, I used a plastic spider ring with the ring portion snipped off to finish the cake. I used one, but you can use as many as you like. It would be fun to have them hanging on the sides of the cake!

Pin this Halloween Spiderweb Cake Tutorial for later!

Halloween Spiderweb Cake Tutorial

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Author: Coleen, The Redhead Baker

Serves: 12 to 18 servings

Ingredients

Easy Swiss Buttercream Frosting

• 3 fl oz (6 tbsp) pasteurized liquid egg whites
• 12 oz (3 cups) powdered sugar, sifted
• ¼ tsp salt
• 12 oz (3 sticks, or 1½ cups) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

For the finished cake:

• 2 (8- or 9-inch) round cake layers, your choice of flavor, baked and leveled
• 4 to 4½ cups of Easy Swiss Buttercream frosting (see below)
• Black gel food coloring
• A plastic spider
• A straw
• A plastic ruler
• A disposable piping bag
• A small plain round piping tip

Directions

Make the frosting:

1. Place the egg whites, sugar and salt in a bowl. Beat on low speed with the paddle attachment just until all ingredients are moistened, then on medium speed for 5 minutes.
2. Scrape down the bowl. Begin to add the butter, a tablespoonful at a time, beating until the butter is fully incorporated before adding more. Once all of the butter is incorporated, beat in the vanilla extract.
3. Scrape down the bowl again. Beat the frosting at medium-high speed for 10 minutes, until the frosting is light and creamy.

Make the cake:

1. Reserve ½ cup of the icing and mix in a few drops of black food coloring, until evenly colored. Add more until desired color is reached. Set aside.
2. Place one cake layer, leveled-side-up, on a cake board or serving plate. Place about a ½ cup of icing on top, and spread in an even layer. Place the second layer leveled-side-down on top of the first layer. Spread a very fine layer of frosting on the top and sides of the cake. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Ice the cake with the remaining frosting. Chill again for at least 30 minutes, or until ready to decorate.
4. Choose a spot on the cake to make your center (this can be the center of the cake, or off-center if you wish). Use the open end of a straw to gently mark the spot in the icing.
5. Use the thin edge of the plastic ruler to gently mark 8 lines around the spot on the top of the cake.
6. Place the piping tip in the piping bag. Fill halfway with black icing. Snip off the tip just above the opening of the piping tip.
7. Gently trace and fill in the circle made by the straw, and then trace the lines made by the ruler edges.
8. At even intervals (up to you, depending on how open you want your web to be), draw curved lines connecting the straight lines.
9. Where the straight lines meet the edge of the cake, pipe straight lines down the sides of the cake.
10. Place the spider on top of the cake. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

3.5.3208

Icing recipe by Sugar Hero

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

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