It’s the turn of the cake pops today in our series of utterly adorable Halloween tutorials. These chocolate spider cake pops are less creepy crawly and more fantastically friendly! Cute desserts or cake decorations aren’t just for kids. When the holiday season comes around each year we often find the biggest kids of all are anyone over 25! So why not dress up your spooktacular Halloween party with these chocolate spider cake pops? Psst… they’re also perfect for goody bags too!
How to decorate cute chocolate spider cake pops for Halloween!
Materials and tools needed…
- Chocolate cake!
- Chocolate buttercream
- Milk chocolate or dark chocolate candy melts (one average sized bag coats around 20-25 pops)
- Cake pop sticks
- White ribbon
- White fondant / sugar paste
- Black edible sugar pearls
- Brown cola candy laces (or black liquorice laces)
- Rainbow confetti sprinkles (you’ll specifically need the pink ones)
- Edible glue
- Small round piping tip (we used a Wilton no. 09)
- Small sharp knife
- Small rolling pin
01: In a bowl crumble up as much chocolate as you think you’ll need into a fine crumb. Try not to leave larger lumps in this mix or you’ll end up with lumpy and bumpy cake pops. Not a good look!
02: Add in a little of your chocolate buttercream at a time. Never add great big dollops in. You want your cake and buttercream mixture to be sturdy, but moist enough to hold together. Adding too much buttercream makes them unstable and sloppy. Adding too little buttercream will make them crumbly and a nightmare to work with.
Tip!
Your cake pop mix is ready and perfect when you can push a cake pop stick into a formed cake ball and no cracks appear! If it cracks or if it begins to crumble add a little more buttercream. If your cake pop doesn’t crack, but instead looks misshapen or even flat then it’s likely to be sloppy. Add a bit more cake crumble!
03: Now roll portions of your cake pop mix into smooth balls. Make sure that these are all even and equal in size.
Tip!
To get equal sized cake pops we weigh our cake pop mix to make sure that each ball weighs exactly 25g. You can make your’s larger if you like, but remember that the larger or heavier the pop the less stable it will be on your cake pop stick! Once you’ve added the coating and any decorations too it adds a little weight and makes your cake pop bigger in size!
04: Dip a cake pop stand in a little candy melt and push into the top centres of your cake balls to make them pops! Try to push the stick around 2/3rds into the ball. Push too far and it will drive through to the other end. Too shallow and your cake pop will risk falling off! Once all your pops are on their sticks you can place them in the fridge for around 30mins to 1 hour!
If you want your spider cake pops to set in nice round balls that sit at the top of your sticks you’ll need to chill them in the fridge on a cake pop stand. Otherwise, you can leave your pops to sit cake pop down with the stick upwards. You’ll get flat bottoms if you do this, but that’s fine. It’s just a case of how you want them to look in the end!
05: Prep your candy melts by microwaving them in a microwave safe bowl or jug at 30 second intervals until fully melted! An average 397g bag of candy melts tends to be OK for around 20-25 cake pops. You should get your melts ready to dip your cake pops around 5 minutes before removing your pops from the fridge.
Tip!
Be aware though that you need a a good amount of candy melts to make the dipping process stress free! Too little or too shallow and you’ll have to keep dipping and swirling your pop. This could make it break or even lead to an uneven coating.
06: Once chilled (they should feel firm and secure) you can coat your cake pops! Take your bowl or jug and tilt the melts to one side. Take your cake pop and carefully dip it in until fully submerged, to where the top of the pop meets the stick.
Once you’ve got a good coating (you may need to tilt the bowl or jug around the pop) gently tap it on the side (with the stick) to shake off any excess candy melt.
07: Set your cake pop down (either stuck into a cake pop stand or stood up) and snip your candy laces down to a good size (approx. 1 inch is good). You’ll need 8 pieces per cake pop. Whilst your candy coating is still wet carefully push the candy laces in. These are your spider’s legs so you’ll need to add 4 on each side along the bottom.
08: Whilst your cake pop coating is still wet add two pink confetti sprinkles to the sides of it’s face to create lovely rosy cheeks. Set aside your spider cake pops to fully set.
09: Once your cake pops have set roll two small balls of white fondant / sugar paste to create the eyes and attach with a dab of edible glue to the front of your spider. Take two black edible sugar pearls and attach with edible glue for pupils.
10: Add a cheeky little smile to your spider’s face if you like! We rolled out white fondant / sugar paste with a small rollin pin, cut out a series of circles with a small round piping tip and cut each circle in half for a toothy grin!
