Cake Decorating Ideas

This is the first ever Walleye designed cake I ever made. I learned that working with rice krispies, fondant and molding chocolate wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Painting fondant was so easy and fun too. I made this cake for a friend’s father’s birthday, who is an advent Walleye fisherman from Dubuque, Iowa. So that was my inspiration for making this Walleye Fish Cake. It was a huge hit and tasted great.

First, I made a white 12” x 4” round cake that I frosted in an ocean blue colored buttercream and added Wilton’s clear piping gel on top to give it a wet look. Next, I made some pussy willows branches out of wood skewers that are wrapped in green floral tape and bended them to shape. As for the pussy willows, I just added some Wilton brown paste to some gum paste and mixed just enough colors to give it that marble look. I slid each of those pieces into to the tops of each willow stick.

Next, I made the Walleye by forming the base with 1 batch of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies. I made sure that it was very firm by compressing the rice krispies together so to take on the shape of the fish body. I made another batch of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies to form the back of the fish where the tail would be attached later. I set both aside to make some molding chocolate.

I made a batch of molding chocolate by melting 8oz’s of white Wilton chocolate in a melting pot. After it was melted, I turned it down to just to keep it liquid but cooler to touch. I added about 1 cup of clear corn syrup to a pan and heated it until it was boiling and then added it to my melted chocolate. I mixed both together until it became firm to handle. I rolled the mixture into 2 logs, wrapped it in plastic wrap and then refrigerated it for about 1 hour until it was firm.

Since I already had the rice krispies bases shaped into the fish parts, I took the molding chocolate and molded it all over each rice krispie base. I formed the gills and the mouth with the molding chocolate using my hands and a fondant ball tool. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

With gum paste, I made the fins and the mouth of the fish. I added the mouth to the rice krispie base while I harden the fins on tooth picks to make attachment easier. As for the fish scales, I rolled a bit of white fondant on a rock pattern mat to achieve that particular look. The eyes of the fish is also made from fondant.

To give color to the fish, I mixed 2 to 3 drops of vodka to a bowl of food coloring to make them dry faster. I painted both fish bases in green. (Let it dry properly before painting or your fondant could get really sticky and may slide off). I also added more green to areas that I want to make a bit darker. Brown and yellow colors were also painted on the fish as well as off white for the stomach and mouth areas.

Lastly, I added the candles and took some green buttercream and used my leaf tip to add the leafs up the side of the cake and wrote “Happy Birthday”.

First Name: Tiffany
City-State: Dubuque, Iowa