Friend Friday: The Famous Fant Spider Cake
The “Spider Cake” is famous at the Fant house! The spider cake was originally made
by my grandmother, “Maa Maa.” After the five Fant kids got past the Cinderella and
Baseball cakes, the spider cake was (and still is) the number one requested birthday cake! It can be made for any occasion, not just birthdays!
Here’s how to make it!
You can use a basic chocolate cake recipe or devil’s food cake mix, but my all-time
favorite chocolate cake recipe is “Black Magic Cake.” For the frosting, make a seven-
minute frosting then drizzle with unsweetened chocolate. Swirl with a knife to make
a spider web pattern. The combination of unsweetened chocolate and the sweet seven
minute frosting is delicious!!!
Black Magic Cake
Original recipe makes 1 - 9x13 inch or 2 - 9 inch round pans
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups white sugar
- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup strong brewed coffee
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans or one 9x13 inch pan
- In large bowl combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center.
- Add eggs, coffee, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Beat for 2 minutes on medium speed. Batter will be thin.
- Pour into prepared pans.
- Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 to 40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes, then remove from pans and finish cooling on a wire rack.
- Fill and frost as desired.
Ingredients
- 2 unbeaten egg whites
- 1 1/2 c sugar
- 5 Tbsp cold water
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
- 1 1/2 tsp light corn starch (optional)
- Mix together over boiling water (double boiler), beating with electric beaters for seven minutes. Remove from heat. (For 1/2 recipe, cook about 4 1/2 minutes.)
- Add 1 tsp vanilla. Continue beating until desired consistency.
a "pretty mess."
Then melt 1 oz. unsweetened chocolate with 1 Tbsp margerine/butter. Drizzle in a
circular pattern over the top of the cake, drizzling slightly down the sides when you get tothe outer edge (begin in the center). Then take a knife and "swipe" it (that's the best word I know!) from the center to the edge to make it look like a spider web.
Step-by-step instructions for the icing:
1. Gather your ingredients:
2. Separate the egg whites into the top of your double boiler then add the rest of the
ingredients.
If you don’t have a double boiler, you can do it the redneck way like me. :-)
3. Beat the ingredients in the double boiler for seven whole minutes. NO cheating. The
icing does turn out better if you don’t break a beater to your hand mixer and just use one, by the way…
5. After seven minutes, it will be a beautiful white fluffy icing.
6. Put the unsweetened chocolate in a cup and melt. It find it easiest just to put the
cup back into the water for the double boiler.
While it’s melting, let your precious two-year old have a much-anticipated taste of the icing.
7. Frost the tops of your cake (or cupcakes, in this case)
8. Take the nicely-melted chocolate and drizzle in a circular pattern over the top(s)
of the cake/cupcakes.
9. While doing this, allow your assistant to lick the beaters (or, in this case, the
beater.)
10. Using a knife, swipe to make a spider web pattern. This was the point for me at
which I realized that either I had not added all the ingredients (quite possible) or
that my hand held beaters with one beater did not do the trick. Either way, the
ONE TIME that I take pictures of my cupcakes, the icing did not set right. Ha!
Instead of these cupcakes being a “thank-you” to the sweet nurses who took care of my
mother-in-law, these cupcakes were given to college students with a disclaimer. They
tasted AMAZING but looked ugly. The college students enjoyed them, however.
-Elizabeth Fant Burrow (aka. Bop or Boss Fant)
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