Black Widow Cake

Ingredients

For the cake

• 100g vegan, soft eating liquorice pieces
• 175ml water
• 250ml vegetable oil
• 165g self-raising flour
• 100g sugar
• 25g cocoa powder
• 50g walnuts pieces ground
• 2 tbsp gram flour mixed with 4 tbsp water
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp baking powder
• A few drops vanilla extract

For the icing

• 60g icing sugar
• ½ tsp food colouring (optional)
• 1 tbsp water

To decorate

• Black icing pen
• 1 piece of soft eating liquorice

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C / gas mark 4.
2. Chop the liquorice into small pieces and put in a small pan with 175ml water. Boil for about 5 minutes until the liquorice is starting to go soft and mushy. Remove from the heat and pour in the vegetable oil, stirring well.
3. Put the remaining cake ingredients into a large mixing bowl and stir in the liquorice mixture.
4. Put in a small (18cm) lined cake tin and bake in the oven for 35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out of the middle of the cake clean.
5. Leave in the cake tin to cool for about 10 minutes, then remove onto a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Mix together the icing sugar, food colouring (if using) and water, then spread over the cooled cake with a palette knife, gently and evenly. Using the black icing pen draw a web pattern on top of the icing. Then make a spider out of the spare piece of liquorice!