A Whale of a Tail

The original design for this cake was for Sea World's star, Shamu, to be emerging from the water with his nose and tail up. Due to the client's budget constraints (we are in a recession, after all) the cake was scaled down to just Shamu by himself.

I'd never done a whale cake before, and the birthday boy specifically wanted a Shamu cake, so I did some research ahead of time. Even so, after sculpting the cake a bit, I ended up with a Moby Dick sort of whale, instead of the killer whale that Shamu is. After some further sculpting, my whale had morphed into a respectable Shamu!

Started out looking more like this . . .


But ended up looking like this:

Shamu the killer whale carved out of cake and rice krispy treats and covered in buttercream. Finished with an M&M eye!

I think the original design would have been really cool to work on, but I always have to take my clients' budget and needs into consideration, first and foremost. This was a fun cake to work on in any case!

Moby Dick cover image from Amazon.com