Halloween Series... Day 25 SugarVeil Spider Web Cake

Mary of mary had a little cake

About 2 and a half years ago,my friend Mary fell in love with fondant cakes  and today she is a part time Cake Designer and owns her own company "mary had a little cake,inc". Mary specializes in wedding cakes. She has won a couple of awards for her cake designs and loves to make people happy with her cake creations.

 I am so happy to have her here today showings us a fantastic technique in cake decorating, SugarVeil...

Hey, everyone! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been hooked on Kathia’s blog. I didn’t even have a blog profile or account until Kathia asked me a few weeks ago to be a guest for her 28 Days of Sweet Halloween Ideas. Now I’m totally addicted! Thank you, Kathia. I’m so flattered that you included me in this very talented group of bakers and artists!

SugarVeil Spider Web Cake

My real passion is in making elegant wedding cakes, so I designed this 3 tiered spider web cake. This is so simple, but very striking. It would be a great centerpiece for an elegant, but festive Halloween party.

I get inspiration from all sorts of places and the inspiration for this cake came from this fun cake stand I found in Marshalls

 First I covered the tiers with orange fondant.

I made a fondant snake border for around the base of all the tiers, by using a clay gun.

The snake was adhered to the cake with piping gel.

Now the fun starts! I love, love, love SugarVeil! I was inspired to use this product, remembering that Lauri Ditunno used it for her popular ‘skull wedding cake’ on season 1 of Amazing Wedding cakes. She used SugarVeil for the web.

Sugarveil is so versatile and easy to use. Check out the company’s website before you use it (they have a website with videos, ideas, etc. ) The directions come right on the packet, so I won’t give them to you here. To make a black web, I added black liquid food coloring (and decreased the water amount). If you’ve never used SugarVeil…don’t add black coloring…it makes it very sticky …see towards the end of the tutorial for what to do instead.

.Use the paddle attachment on your kitchen aide and use a timer, because the amount of mixing time is crucial. If you mix it too much, it gets too thick. After the SugarVeil is mixed, place it in a piping bag fitted with a number 1, 0 or 00 tip.

To make the SugarVeil web, I traced this purple craft paper and some clipart I found online. I put the images under a 12 x 12 plastic or acetate scrape booking sleeve and rubbed a thin layer of shortening on the plastic. This is done so that the dried SugarVeil easily lifts off the plastic.

Pipe your design with the SugarVeil and let it sit overnight. I added silver disco dust to my black SugarVeil while it was wet to make it glittery. You can’t see it in the photos of the cake, but in person, it is very shiny! Love that disco dust!

After a day or so, I then lifted the SugarVeil from the plastic and the webs were adhered to the cake with nothing at all. It was very sticky on the underside because of the Crisco.

*******FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO”VE NEVER USED SUGARVIEL*******

This is important: If you’re using SugarVeil for the first time, you might want to keep the SugarVeil white or make it white and then spray it with black airbrush color (like in these pictures) This is because, when you add black food coloring to SugarVeil, it gets very soft and sticky and is very difficult to handle.

Oh, yes, the spiders…I almost forgot…they are not edible. They’re real!!! No. I got a big bag of plastic bugs from the party store.

To see more of my cakes visit my facebook page; http://www.facebook.com/maryhadalittlecakeinc

Thank you again, Kathia. I think I had more fun creating this tutorial than I did making the cake! It must be the teacher in me. Happy Halloween everyone!!