Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can...

As I've not done any baking recently I thought I'd do a quick recap of the last thing I baked - my son's 4th Birthday Cake which, at his request, was a Spiderman cake!

I spent some time Googling for ideas - having made a different cakes for each of the kids' birthdays (4 for Jacob now, 2 for Jemima) I've discovered that I'm not very good at following step by step guides to making cakes, I'm better off finding an idea and feeling my way until it looks vaguely passable!  That's what I did with Spidey - I found a picture, thought of a way to do it and then did it, these are the rough stages it went through:

Stage 1
I baked a 10" vanilla madeira, and a 8" chocolate madeira (I used the same quantities for both which is why one is deeper than the other).

Stage 2
I split and filled the 10" vanilla cake with buttercream and jam, then I crumb coated it in buttercream and covered it in marble effect fondant icing (I used white icing with a few dots of black colouring not fully kneaded in).

Stage 3
Using a cut out paper template I then carved the 8" chocolate cake to make a Spidey face shape - crumb coated it and covered it in red fondant.

Stage 4
I cut a cardboard base for the "head" and used wooden dowling rods to support the upper tier on the lower tier and stuck it on with buttercream.  Then finally I decorated it using black royal icing for the lines, and black/white fondant for the eyes (stuck on using some of the royal icing and edible glue for the white bits) - and there you have it.... SPIDERMAN!!!!