Coolest Fish Cake 30

by Tristan Swallows
(Pickens, SC)

Tristan's Flounder Fish Cake

I was turning 19 this year so I decided that for my last year as a teenager I wanted a party! Not just any party but a "little girl frilly" party. After a trip to party city I had decided upon Little Mermaid decorations (oh how I am a sucker for anything Disney, especially when it involves redheads! yay!) My husband laughed and rolled his eyes every time I would get excited about balloons or streamers. Anyway, I also have never liked "typical" birthday cakes, which in our town at least always seem to come from bilo or ingles- I think buttercream icing is disgusting! ( sorry to all you icing lovers out there!) and the cakes is always bland and dry, therefore I decided that I wanted to make my own birthday cake!

After looking on various websites I came across this spectacular fish cake and saw all the beautiful Arial Cakes in the doll pan. However, I knew that it simply wouldn't be enough cake for what I needed, so I decided to make a Flounder cake.

Seeing it was my first time I was decidedly nervous to say the least, but it turned out to be much more fun and tasty than I could have imagined! First off all I baked two 8x3 round cakes (dark chocolate fudge cake ultra moist), let them cool, wrapped in three layers of saran wrap and froze them overnight. The next day I found a recipe for Peanut Butter Buttercream and let me tell you it is amazing, so basically my cake tasted like a giant Reese's piece yum!

I trimmed the top cake down a bit to make it more bowl shaped and iced and stacked both cakes. I then rolled out some fondant, colored to what I needed, layed it on the cake and smoothed it out. Like I said, being the first time I had ever done this, I had a few wrinkles in the fondant. I then layed on the stripes and "tacked" them down with a tiny bit of water. I shaped the top fin and side fins and let them harden with a few toothpicks inserted, then attached them to the cake. Finally I colored some more of my icing and covered the wrinkles with "seaweed" and "anemones".

Overall, for my first time, I would say it came out pretty well. Everyone at the party wouldn't believe I made it. No one wanted to cut into so I had to cut it myself. I made it to eat!

So here's to future endeavors in the wonderful world of baking!