Halloween carrot cake

For the decoration: reserve a small piece of the white fondant icing for the spiders’ eyes and colour another small piece orange, then keep both pieces well wrapped. Colour the rest of the fondant black. Working with the black fondant icing, shape 3 spider’s bodies, 1 large and 2 small, their legs and eyes. For the legs, roll 4 thin ropes of the black icing on a work surface lightly dusted with icing sugar, position them on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment, sit a spider body in the centre so it has 4 legs either side, then gently press together. Repeat with the other spider’s bodies. Use the white and orange icing to shape the eye and mouth details and press these on the spider’s bodies, attaching with a little water if needed. Leave overnight in a dry place to firm up. Wrap and reserve the remaining black fondant icing for later.

For the cake: preheat the oven to 160C/fan 140C/gas 3. Oil and line the base of an 18cm round x 7.5cm deep cake tin. Mix the flours with the bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon. Put the sugar and oil in a mixing bowl and beat together with an electric mixer to combine. Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. Tip in the flour mix and stir together gently with a large metal spoon. Fold in the carrots, raisins and orange zest. The batter will be quite soft. Pour it into the tin. Bake for 1 hour - 1 hour 10 minutes, or until the cake is risen and feels firm to the touch. Test with a skewer and when inserted, if it comes out clean - the cake is done. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then remove and peel off the lining paper. Leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

For the filling: beat the icing sugar and butter together until smooth. Beat in the soft cheese and orange juice. Cut the cake in three layers and sandwich back together with about two thirds of the filling. Spread the rest on top of the cake.

To decorate the cake on the day of serving, make the spider web by rolling thin ropes as you did for the spider legs. Lay them on one side of the cake to look like a web. Carefully lift the spiders from the paper and lay them in position, making 2 black ropes from the fondant coming down from the web for 2 of the the spiders to dangle from.