Who here has never yearned to swim with dolphins? Answer: nobody. What could possibly be more fun and exciting than sharing the sea with these most intriguing creatures? Known for their intelligence, friendliness, playfulness and ingenuity, dolphins have been considered lucky omens by sailors for thousands of years. They appear in countless myths and legends as benevolent and favoured by the gods.

So it is little wonder that in modern times, Flipper, the most famous TV dolphin of all time, joined the ranks of Lassie, Mr. Ed, Francis the talking mule, and Rin Tin Tin in Hollywood stardom.

“The television series follows a Bottlenose Dolphin named Flipper who is the wild pet of a park warden and his sons. Flipper lives in a lagoon near their cottage at Coral Key Park and Marine Preserve. With the family, Flipper helps protect the park and preserve and its wild inhabitants. He is also instrumental in apprehending criminals and thugs in the park.” (Wikipedia) Clearly what the police procedural shows of the last decade really need is a crime-solving dolphin on the team.

This is all really beside the point and served as completely useless information when I sat down to design the cake. Still, it’s important to know that serious research and groundwork go into preparation for these projects. It’s not just a fly by the seat of your pants, slap dash, lackadaisical, devil-may-care undertaking. (Did you know there’s a site called thesaurus.com?)

The real challenge was to express the dolphins’ movement. They needed to leap into the air but still be safely secured to the cake. The only way to achieve this was to stick skewers into them. However, I still needed to keep their bodies arched, something a skewer is incapable of doing. The result is somewhat of a compromise between practicality and verisimilitude.

The rest was more or less automatic pilot. I’ve made too many water-themed cakes to count, although this one was unique in that I added the onrushing waves and the undersea flora.

After spending all this time obsessing about dolphins, I am now jealous of the birthday girl and I freely admit it. She apparently has swum with dolphins not once, but several times. Where do I sign up?