Water World

It’s nostalgia week at Temptations. This is a cake from a number of years ago that I’ve always been fond of, but it’s an interesting exercise to imagine how different it would look if I were to make it today.

The challenge with this cake was to give the dolphins movement, and the water dimension and depth. The dolphin problem was easily solved – attach them to skewers of different lengths and place them at various heights and angles. In retrospect, I think the surface of the cake could have benefited from some sea foam, which would have also somewhat camouflaged the skewers. Also, the dolphins didn’t all have to look so uniform. Today I probably would also make them dimensional instead of flat.

The water was made by piping icing in random shapes onto a flat sheet and letting them harden. The blue and green were indiscriminately blended in. When attached to the sides of the cake, they were meant to convey waves and movement. This is an idea that I adapted from Colette Peters’ Cakes to Dream On. She airbrushed the colour onto her cake for a very uniform look. However, I think the very haphazardness of these waves adds some authenticity to the look. The only thing I would do differently now is cover the sides of the cake with icing to simulate water before adding the wave pieces. That way the water would present with a number of levels and would add even more depth to the effect.

I don’t generally appreciate having to make the same cake more than once, but this is a challenge I would happily take on again, just so this time I’d really get it right.

Don’t forget to enter the 2^nd Annual Design A Cake Contest. Read about it here.