I can’t remember where I got this idea, but it was really easy, cute and needless to say all the kids at this early Fall get together were really impressed.  This would be a great cake for any holiday or birthday using the appropriate colors! Wherever I saw this idea, they used a cake ball maker to make the balls, which would be a great way to go if you have one, but for those of  us who don’t… this is the way I came up with 🙂

To start I made a simple white or yellow cake from a box, following all preparation instructions on the box and adding a little orange food coloring to the batter. I baked it as instructed, being careful not to over bake because it needed to be nice and moist.  When the cake was cool I took small handfuls ( as big or small as you like – how big do you want your polka dots?) and squeezed them together and rolled them into balls. I think I made 15-ish.  Then I placed them in a covered container and put them in the freezer to chill for a few minutes.

Next I made a basic chocolate cake, again from a box, following the instructions on the box and adding a little black food coloring. I poured the cake batter into the two 8 inch  greased pans. Then I got the ‘cake balls’ from the freezer and randomly placed several of them in each of the chocolate-batter filled pans. I baked the chocolate cakes as directed on the box, and then let them cool completely.

To assemble the cake, I made some orange and black frosting by adding food coloring to white and chocolate frosting. I cut off the rounded tops of both of the layers to make it look nice . I set one layer of the cake on my cake plate, frosted the top of it with black frosting, then set the next layer on the cake. I frosted the entire cake with orange frosting, but then I wanted something fun on the outside.

So I started making circles from the middle of the cake and just kept going all the way down to the bottom of the cake. Then I made lines the other directions ( in the directions you would cut the cake) all the way across the cake one way and then I would cross it the opposite way. I did that as many times as looked good, and then I thought the web needed a spider. so I just really quickly made a big blob of black frosting with a smaller blob in front of it, and piped on eight legs. I happened to have some candy eyes that I threw on there to complete the look.

I have to admit that the cake balls are a little different texture than “cake,” but nobody seemed to mind. All I heard was “COOL!” and “I want the piece with lots of polka dots!”  Next time I may try to make the kind of cake balls with frosting. I think it may work if you freeze them before baking them the second time.


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