Continuing on the Ocean Themed cakes…we present the Under the Sea cake we created for Diesel’s birthday!!
Once again, it was Diesel from Pets in the City’s Birthday, and he could have nothing but the bestest paw-ty around! Last year Diesel had a Dinosaur Themed birthday, and he was the recipient of one of our very first specialty cakes (read all about it here). Since that paw-ty, we did many specialty cakes, and we’re pleased to say that we picked up quite a few more skills. After doing a Beach Themed cake, we were excited to do a similar themed cake…but this time go UNDER the water!
Sketched it out….DISCLAIMER: I have never claimed to have any drawing skills. This is a raw behind the scenes look at how I plan out my specialty cakes…….I have a general feeling about how they are going to look, but I don’t have the skills or really feel the need to actually draw them out all nicely in detail. Just not my thing! For now at least. Here’s my drawing in all it’s “glory:”
My chicken scratches: Planning Diesel’s Under the Sea Cake
I told you it was terrible! BOL! Luckily, my cakes turn out much nicer than the drawing.
When planning out this Under the Sea cake, I first thought of how we were going to lay it out…would it be all ocean, or would we show some of the sky? I decided no, if the theme is UNDER the sea, then it needs to be completely under the sea. (duh).
Next question: should we show the ocean floor or not? If we didn’t show the ocean floor, then the focus would pretty much just be sea creatures that swim. That’s nice, but I really love starfish and coral and I really felt that showing the ocean floor would set the scene more. So…ocean floor, YES!
So here’s one corner of the cake including the starfish I mentioned…
Happy Starfish dancing along the ocean floor
Which also brings me to another decision in planning this cake: should the sea creatures have faces or not? That was hardly a pause: YES they should have faces and YES those faces need to be smiling!!! This is a HAPPY Birthday, afterall! 🙂
I also learned another new technique for this cake. If you look closely at the border, you’ll notice that it’s White AND Blue. While researching cakes, I noticed this detail on a border and decided I wanted to learn how to do it. I’m quite pleased with the results, I think it adds something a little more special to the outline of the cake.
Some coral details
I really love piping trees, branches and coral-type stuff for some reason. I like how they’re just lines, but when you put them together they become a beautiful bush of sorts. In my ideal world, this piece of coral would’ve been red, but unfortunately cream cheese does not take to dark colors well, and it would’ve been a pink piece of coral. But I think the yellow turned out good too!
I knew I wanted to add in some 3D biscuit elements too. My sister was already creating some custom biscuits for the favors:
Fish-n-Poi Octopus, Chicken-n-Poi Whale and Sweet Potato Fish!
At first I decided to definitely use the Octopus and the Whale — the fish I loved, but I had in my mind the idea to make a school of mini fish. The problem was, I didn’t have a mini fish cookie cutter…or WAS that a problem? Nope! I just cut them out by hand:
The octopus made an appearance, and I decided instead of coloring him, I wanted to use the natural color of the biscuit, and just add some eyes:
Also in this photo you can see the friendly jellyfish that I made too. I love jellyfish, I think they’re my favorite sea creature. I love the way they float around, puffing away…I also love how they freak me out because they could KILL ME. (Weird, aren’t I?)
In the end, I decided not to use the whale. As I was sketching out my design, I realized the whale is so TINY compared to the octopus…and it wouldn’t make sense to put him anywhere. Sorry Whale! You didn’t make the cut.
And there you have it! Diesels’s Delightful Under the Sea Cake! Since Diesel is a special customer, we delivered the cake personally, and we got to see the birthday boy himself with all his friends:
Also got a sneak peek of the decorations and look at ALL THE PRESENTS!! What a lucky pup!
We’re happy to report that Diesel said he had a PAWESOME birthday!! Happy (belated) Birthday to you, cute stuff!!!
Want to see more Specialty Cakes? Visit our Specialty Cake Gallery by clicking here!
Would you like to order a specialty cake? Contact us today at woof{at}hawaiidoggiebakery.org!