• Prepare the syrup by stirring together the sugar, water orange juice concentrate and butter in a saucepan (the butter helps reduce foaming).
• Cook and stir until it comes to a boil, then reduce heat and cook for 15-25 minutes, stirring frequently, until mixture thickens a little bit, then remove from heat (it will thicken even more as it cools). It should yield about 1-2/3 cups as it cools (will seem slightly higher at first because stirring increases the volume by introducing air into it).
• To make the pancakes, have two plastic squeeze bottles ready, both with smallish tips, but one smaller than the other.
• Stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In another small bowl, whisk together the cooled melted butter, eggs, and 1-1/2 cups of the buttermilk.
• Combine the wet and dry ingredients, stirring to make a batter.
• Separate out 1-1/2 cups of the batter into a separate bowl and stir in the black baking coca and the rest of the buttermilk (1/2 cup). This will be your black batter.
• Into the other normal batter, add the vanilla extract and a few drops each of red and yellow food color until it is a nice orange color to you.
• Heat the griddle and give it a small wipe with cooking oil.

Making baby spiders:

• Place some black batter into the squeeze bottle and fit it with a drizzling size tip (you may need to cut the plastic tip to size, but be conservative with it so you don't make it too big).
• Make an "X" shape on the griddle with the black batter, and then fill in two more legs on each side of the "X" to make 8 legs, 4 on each side. Then squeeze out enough black batter to make a circle filled in on top of those. Cook until small bubbles appear on top, then use a butter knife to flip it over and cook the other side (a spatula is too clumsy for the baby spiders).

Making Spiderweb Pancakes:

• Change the tip of the squeeze bottle to one with a little bit bigger opening. Make 3-4 crossing lines to make the structure of the web with black batter. Scallop more web from line to line to get a good looking web. If the tip jams or clogs, remove it and quickly rinse under running water- don't squeeze the bottle hard to dislodge it or a bunch of batter might shoot out and ruin your web (I did this).
• Once the structure is made, use a small ladle to spoon orange batter to fill in the open areas of web. Let the pancake cook until small bubbles appear, then carefully turn with a spatula and cook the other side.

To make the Tarantula Pancake:

• Place two dots of orange batter on the griddle and ladle black batter over it in a circle to make the body. Trust me, don't think you can put the eyes onto a  pancake and then turn it. They will smear (I did this too). Once the little bubbles appear, carefully turn the pancake over.