This Shark Birthday Cake was for my son who really likes… can you guess? Yes, SHARKS! Even though sculpted cake seems a little intimidating, it wasn’t all that hard to do. Of course midway through the process, after stacking chopped layers of chocolate sponge cake with generous amounts of peanut butter cream it looked like an unbelievable mess. But cutting it to rough shape of shark head and smoothing butter cream all over really improved it’s appearance. And airbrushing fondant (and everything else within 3 ft.) was a pure delight!
Water around the cake on the photo is a Photoshop trick of course.
So inside is a chocolate cake, I am still looking for a perfect chocolate cake recipe, this one was good for carving. I found it at Peggy Porschen “Romantic cakes” book. This book and every cake in it, is unbelievable by the way. Anyway the cake is more on the dense side so it doesn’t fall apart as a box cake would. And since it uses butter and melted chocolate, not oil and cocoa powder – the taste is great too.
Now the cream – filling is a mix of half butter cream, half smooth peanut butter. Outside under fondant – a thin layer of butter cream.
Word of warning – tall and narrow cake layers will slide against each other. It’s a 100%-triple-diamond guarantee. I had to find something in a rush around the kitchen to spear the sliding layers through. The long drinking straw ( 2 of them) were a life saver!
Finally the decorating. Airbrushing with food colors is a lot of fun, and saves a lot of time! Mixing colors into fondant can break your wrists, but airbrushing makes you feel artistic and sophisticated. Just don’t look at the soles of your white socks… because you’d be surprised to find them colored in the same palette as your cake.
I had a friend visiting when I was finishing the cake and we had laughed to hiccups when scary shark teeth wouldn’t stay in place and started popping off. Some of them had to be surgically implanted with toothpicks.
So here is the picture, please enjoy.
would like to know how to make this cake. what did you use for teeth? e-mail me. serious to learn. http://www.snowilly@far.midco.net thanks
Awesome!!!!
WOW THAT LOOKS AMAZING HOW LONG DID IT TAKE U :)
Well done u made me dream of d process as I was reading it. Good job, but where can I get a good and cheap air brushing machine?
I got mine on Amazon. Look for the kit that has airbrushing food colors included. Mine came with 12 colors. It lasts a good while. Just remember to use ONLY airbrushing colors, not liquid food colors from the grocery store
That cake is beautiful it look so real and neat. very nice
Yikes, amazing! Yes, how did you do the teeth?
epic :-)