Thanks for the inspiration from so many wonderful cakes on this webpage! This Swimming Pool Birthday Cake with Mermaids was made for our daughter’s 5th birthday party that was taking place at the pool. Our daughter wanted a pool theme, and loves littlest pet shop characters, mermaids, marble cake and Nutella (a chocolate hazelnut cream from Germany) so this was the blending of them all! The cakes themselves were three recipes of fudge marble cake split into two 9 x 13 cake pans. After cooling, one layer was covered with key lime jam, then Nutella, and then cream cheese filling, and the second layer added on top. I then drew a circle around a blue melamine cereal bowl and cut out the paper and laid it on the cake to cut out a section in the middle of the layered cake to hold the bowl.
After cutting the hole in the top layer to fit that bowl, I frosted the entire cake in fluffy white frosting and then sprinkled finely crushed graham cracker crumbs all over the top of the cake. Then I put in the blue bowl, and my daughter helped me put bubble gum (juicy fruit and grape gum) around the edges of the “pool ‘ to serve as tiles. Then just before serving I filled the bowl with blue jello and stuck in the mermaids, added the writing in blue sparkle Wilson writing gel, sprinkled on the remaining graham cracker crumbs around the edges, and added the littlest pet shop characters around the top and sides of the cake (with a few paper drink umbrellas to keep the sun off!).
The kids really enjoyed the cake and the graham cracker crumbs made it not so terribly sweet.
Very, very clever idea. The part I liked best is the jello and the umbrellas. Keep it up!