This cake was created as a surprise for my cousin’s birthday. He loves fishing so I figured a fish cake would go over swimmingly!
This is a yellow cake in which I added a bit of banana extract for additional flavor. I began with two rectangular layers of the cake and carved out the fish, minus the fins, using a serrated knife. Once I was
pleased with the shape, I iced the cake using a plain chocolate icing. Then the decorating really began!
First, I rolled out plain white fondant (I use Satin Ice) about an 1/8 of an inch thick, using a small amount of powdered sugar to prevent the fondant from sticking. To transfer the fondant to the cake, I rolled the fondant onto my rolling pin and unrolled it onto the cake. I immediately smoothed and trimmed the fondant before it has a chance to harden at all.
As for the fins, I used the same technique that is used for draping fondant. I rolled out white fondant very
thin and laid it over thin skewers, ensuring the fondant went in between and over each skewer. Then I removed the skewers and placed the fins where they needed to go. Note: for the end of the top fin, I simply indented the fondant with a skewer because they were too close together for the draping effect to work nicely. Each fin was attached with water. Those same skewers were used to make any of the body indentations you see on the fish. Once the anatomy was set, I was ready for the best part…the coloring!
To begin coloring the fish, I airbrushed the entire fish with metallic silver. I moved the airbrush in a swift, horizontal motion. I shaded the silver so that the top of the fish was dark and the belly of the fish was
almost left white. Once that dried, I used a variety of different Petal Dusts for coloring. I began with the base colors (the blues and greens) and continued with the same shading technique used earlier. For detail, I placed a small amount of light pink dust in the mouth/lip area and used black dust to shade the fins and other indentations of the fish (as well as making the vertical lines on the body). Lastly, I attached the fondant-made fish eye with water.
Once I was able to take a step back and look at the cake, it looked as if I had just caught it out of the ocean. After all of the work was finished, I got to present my cousin with his birthday cake. Seeing his reaction and everybody else’s was undoubtedly my favorite part.
First Name: Erin
City-State: Annandale, NJ
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