Rise of the Spider Queen

With a friend soon leaving to go overseas for school, my fiance's birthday party doubled as a going away party for her. Since my other half received a cake, I knew I had to make her one too. Being a Dungeons and Dragons player like myself, I knew she liked Drow (Dark elves) and their culture. What better way to show our true geekness than with a cake of the Spider Queen Lolth!

This was the first time using non-eatables with a cake and it had me worried. Since the Spider Queen is a dryder (half Drow, half spider) the drow half had to be there. With a little thinking, I took one of the doll bodies they use for the princess cakes and started to work. I replaced the hair because it was the wrong color and took to painting the body with nontoxic black paint. The body was then added to a styrofoam sphere which had two sides cut off. This too was painted black with her eyes painted white. I placed food quality cardboard on the flatted bottom and back then went on my way to replace her hair with white yarn. Knowing Lolth liked to have "pets", a chain and collar were added.

I covered the body of the spider with one piece of fondant, then went about figuring out how to piece the two halves together. With the cardboard pressed against the flattened side of the cake, I used a little fondant to secure the base. A band of fondant was placed around the bottom of the styrofoam and cardboard that was pressed against the cake, the sign of the black widow marking her back.

Decorating the spider body with Lolth's symbol was quite easy and the eatable shimmer came out perfect around the web. When my friend saw the completed cake, she was in complete awe, and took so many pictures of it. For a cake that a good portion of it wasn't eatable and something I had never done before, it came out nearly perfect.

To add a little extra, I ended up making six legs to be added during the serving of the cake.

Materials:

• Cake: Fondant, chocolate cake, buttercream frosting
• Doll: Doll body (plastic), yarn, nontoxic paint, styrofoam, food quality cardboard, jewelery chain
• Legs: Foodsafe wire, pipe cleaners

Top shot with no legs.

Top shot with legs!

Wonderful front shot of her.

Back shot of her. I loved the lighting.