Fish Bowl Cake (with instructions)

We made this cake for my youngest’s 4th Birthday. It is still one of our favorite cakes of all time and was loads of fun to make with the kids.

First we start with whatever basic cake you’d like to make. I will admit to cheating many times and I use box cakes often. I embellish them a bit to make them more flavourful though. Other items you need to pick up for this project are. Goldfish crackers, Fruit Rollups, Nerds Candies, and dry chow mein noodles, and buttercream icing.

Using a basic Vanilla cake I will add 1 pouch of Jello instant pudding (french vanilla), and substitute the water with buttermilk. The cakes come out a bit denser and very moist. Just follow the directions on the box with the above substitutions and addition.

Trace the bottom of two round 9” cake pans onto parchment paper and cut them out to line the bottom of the pans. be sure to grease the sides of the two pans. Divide the batter evenly into the two pans and bake as directed on the box.

When they are ready, remove from oven and let cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Flip them onto a wire rack and let them completely cool before icing.

Prepare you icing using a buttercream icing. I used This recipe from Wilton's, for this cake. I prefer the buttercream used in the Vanilla Cupcake Recipe to be honest but either will work fine.

Divide the icing into two parts. Take 1/3 of the white icing out of the mixing bowl and place in a seperate bowl covering until ready to use. Place two drops of Spectra blue food colouring gel into the icing and mix until smooth in colour. Add extra colour until you get the desired shade you are looking for. (Alternatively you can use Wilton’s dye paste, but I prefer Spectra brand)

Once cooled, place cakes on a clean cutting board and slice the raised portion of each cake off to create a flat surface.

Cut the cakes about 2 inches in on opposite sides of the circles. Place icing onto one cake, smooth it over and place the second cake on top. cut approximately two inches from one side of the cake and about an inch to inch and a half off the opposite side so you end up with something that looks like this.

The Longer flat side will be the bottom and the shorter side the top. Spread icing along the longer “bottom” side and place upright onto a round smooth cake plate.

Continue use the blue icing around the cake to end up with the above result. Take your white icing sugar and smooth over the remaining cake. Remember only to use a thin layer of both at this point. Place in the fridge for about 1/2 hour to cool. Once nice and cool, place a thicker layer of each icing colour in the appropriate locations. The first thin layer and cooling allows for a top coat of smooth icing avoiding those pesky crumbs on the top layer.

Here is the top layers now. If you have an icing bag, Fill it with the remaining white icing. Without using any tip pipe a large round oval on the top of the cake to create the cake rim. Fill with blue sprinkle sugar. If you don’t have an icing bag place some of the white icing into one cut the corner to create the same effect.

Now comes the fun part. Take the fruit roll ups out and find the green ones. Cut shapes of seaweed out of the rollups. What I do is use a paring knife to make the shapes then peel them off as needed. The kids like this part. Place the seaweed around the cake wherever you feel like it.

Continue embeleshing the cake until you achieve your desires results with seaweed. Use the nerds along the base for pebbles, Chow mein noodles for added affect (my brain is dead and can’t remember what seaweed the chow mein noodles represent).

When you are happy with your base you can start adding goldfish. For extra fun we used a small tip in the icing bag and made eyes, air bubbles in the tank etc.

The finished fish bowl with some writing and such added to the plate.

There you go!! Get the kids involved (or not) and have fun with it.