Cambridge Food Frivolity: Halloween: wicked web cakes

Halloween: originally a Celtic Festival – Samhain, meaning summers end, is a time to acknowledge a change in season, weather and light.

Crucially for us foodies, it is also a feast day. In medieval times it was a time when the poor would go ‘souling’ (the original Trick-or-Treating) in which they would beg door to door for food. In return they offered to say prayers for the dead.

So, let’s not make them beg this Hallows Eve, whip-up these simple spidersweb cakes – they’re great for little trick-or-treaters.

You will need:

to make vanilla flavoured buns or cupcakes using your favourite recipe. The buns will need to be flat, so if yours rise into a peak as mine did, let them cool and then cut off the tops.
white icing (mix a few drops of water at a time into icing sugar until you get a smooth medium/thick mixture)
green icing - made as above. This will need to be slightly thicker.
a piping bag (or make a simple cone from baking paper and snip off the end)
a cocktail stick (the point of a knife would do if you don't have any)

The important thing when icing these, is to only do one or two at a time otherwise you wont get the same effect if the icing goes too hard.

Put a teaspoon of white icing onto the middle of a cake. Tilt the cake gently to encourage the icing to spread evenly until it looks like this:

Next comes the piping. Put the green icing into the bag and squeeze it down to the end. Fold over the top.

Pipe a small circle of green icing in the center of the bun.

Then pipe 2 larger circles around the first.

Then take your cocktail stick and, starting from the middle of the bun, drag it lightly out to the edge. Wipe off any excess icing and repeat several more times to create around 5 spokes.