Dolphin Cake

I made this cake 2 1/2 months ago for a friend's daughter's 6th birthday. The birthday girl's favorite colors are pink & purple, (what else!) and she loves dolphins. And her favorite kind of cake is chocolate. Mom left the rest of it up to me, and this is what I came up with.

For this cake I used 2 chocolate cake mixes, because, did I mention that I have FOUR kids? The baby was only 2 1/2 months old when I made this cake, too. I never feel too guilty about using a cake mix, but I NEVER will use store-bought frosting for a cake. Gross. I have some great frosting recipes that I will post later. And....back to this cake now.

Used 2 chocolate cake mixes, because this is a 3 or 4 layer cake...can't exactly remember...4 kids...yeah. For the filling, I used fresh strawberry buttercream filling inbetween layers of chocolate ganache, for each layer of cake.

I frosted the cake in pink buttercream frosting, and then decorated with accents of fondant. This time I used Wilton's white fondant, but I have made my own in the past. (Stay tuned for recipes!) I used Wilton's super concentrated food coloring to color both fondant and buttercream. I used circle fondant cutters for the circle shapes.

For the dolphin, I made and used pink modeling chocolate and then formed it into a fairly respectable dolphin shape. Sculpting is NOT my forte, but I managed. Luckily it's an easy shape and I had my daughter's stuffed dolphin to refer to. I wanted the dolphin to have a "wet" look, so I then painted it with corn syrup that I had tinted purple, and then went over it with some white, edible sparkle powder. It gave the dolphin a great wet and shimmery look.

For the "bubbles", I rolled tiny balls of colored fondant and attached them to craft/floral wire that I bent into shape and grouped together. I put some bubbles directly on the cake as well.

For the base of the cake, I rolled varying sizes and colors of fondant balls and placed them around the entire cake.

And finally, everything got a dusting of the edible shimmer powder.

Voila!