Healthier halloween chocolate spider web cake - Sykes Cottages Healthy Halloween Treat !

Oliver loves cake - who doesn't? So when I was asked by Sykes Cottages if I'd like to have a go at creating a healthy halloween treat I instantly thought yay! (If you've never heard of Sykes Cottages you must go have a little look, they've got some gorgeous holiday cottages on offer) But then the problem came, what healthy halloween treat?! oh gosh. So I decided to adjust it a little to make it a 'healthier treat', a 'healthier' than your average chocolate cake! So here it goes.... 

I started by asking Oliver what treat he would like for halloween and he replied with 'a GIANT chocolate spider web cake' - oh ok, thanks Oliver, as usual something nice and easy to do. Don't think I can do the 'giant' but I shall give the chocolate spider web cake a go... a healthier go!

So firstly I wanted to create a sugar-free chocolate sponge cake?
Ingredients: 200g self raising flour, 4 tablespoons cocoa powder, 200g low fat margarine, 3 medium eggs, little bit of semi-skimmed milk, 100g natvia.
So that's a little healthier, right?!?!

Put it all in a bowl and mix it all together until its as Oliver says, 'really smooth'. Pop it into a cake tin and put it in the oven at gas mark 4 for what seems like forever!!

For the alternative to icing I've decided to throw together a weird mixture and see what it ends up like, so in the cupboard we had peanut butter which I've never let Oliver have and I can't eat anymore due to breastfeeding Isabelle who's got cows milk protein allergy, so might aswell see if we can make some use of it!?

Ingredients: 4 table spoons of peanut butter, 2.5 table spoons of soft cheese, 1 and a half table spoons of maple syrup, 8oz greek style yoghurt and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.

Mix the peanut butter and yoghurt together until combined, add the maple syrup and cream cheese, finally adding the vanilla extract and keep mixing until its all smooth..... and guess what I've no idea what this tastes like! haha, I can't actually eat it due to the dairy included in the ingredients so the taste test has been done by Oliver - who's 5 and he says its 'yummy', so it must be yummy right? He also loved putting it all over the cake but that wasn't his fav bit!

Cover the top of the cake in the 'peanut butter yoghurt messy stuff' and then it's time to decorate! Oliver decided on the spiderweb theme... but how on earth was I going to manage that in a healthy way? Then I realised Oliver loves Yo-Yo bears so why not use those!?
So here's what it ended up like.....(Oliver's best bit was getting to eat leftover bits of yo-yo bears straight away!) Around the outside, we've used raisins to make it even healthier treat!

We didn't really have time to work out how to make a spider for the cake so Oliver's kindly said we can use one of his toy ones BUT we can't eat it and he needs it back as soon as possible! (probably so he can leave it on my pillow again because he knows I'm terrified of spiders?! Daddy's idea by the way and no, no no no, Michael it was not funny, it will never be funny and I will get both of you back for it... just a matter of time...).

If you try and make this and it goes wrong by following my instructions I accept absolutely no responsibility :)

I know that this isn't the 'healthiest' of all halloween healthy treats but I like to think we've found a healthier way to enjoy a chocolate cake!
But to add a little healthy we have also got an orange - oops we emptied out the good stuff and filled it with green monster jelly mwahahaha! well Halloween is meant to be fun isn't it!?

We have really enjoyed making this cake so big thank you to Sykes Cottages for getting us involved! Happy Halloween!
Mary-Kate, x

This post was written to be my entry for the Sykes Cottages Healthy Halloween treat competition - Oliver was sent a lovely reciepe book and we were compensated for the cost of the ingredients, Oliver says 'we really want to win!' Our opinion is that we think Sykes Cottages are a great website offering gorgeous cottages from coastal to countryside - there's something for everyone.