Spider Cake

Last Halloween I saw Matt Haughey make these from Ding-Dongs, or Ring-Dings depending on where you are, and the idea has stuck with me since.

I was able to successfully pull off Ganache frosting this time and it would look really, really good (smooth instead of kind of bumpy) if it wasn't for other problems with the cake.

For the cake I made Chocolate Pumpkin (recipe below) and decided it would be a good idea to put marshmallow between the layers of the cake. In high insight I don't know if it was such a good idea. The marshmallow layer kept shifting the top cake and before I knew it my cake was 1/2 an inch off center.

The legs are made from Pocky and held together with chocolate.

Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

1 ½ Cups Flour
2/3 Cups Cocoa
2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
1 Teaspoons Baking Soda
½ Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Cup Butter Milk
1 Cup Canned Pumpkin
2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
3/4 Cup Butter (1 ½ Sticks), Softened
1 Cup Dark Brown Sugar
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
3 Large Eggs, Plus One Yolk

Heat Oven to 375°F, grease and flour two 8-inch cake pans.
Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt together.
Stir in buttermilk, pumpkin and vanilla extract together in a small bowl.
Beat the butter and sugars together on medium speed until light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs and yolk, one at a time.
Reduce speed to low and alternately beat in flour and buttermilk mixtures in thirds.
Divide batter equally into pans.
Bake about 35 minutes or until tester is clean.