I'm Not Duff, But I Already Knew That.

My Step-Dad said he was sick and tired of plain cakes for his birthday, and requested that I make him a cake shaped like a fish that would look all bloody when it was cut open.

I said, and I believe this is a direct quote, "You are on the crack rock."

Turns out that he and Mom have just watched too many episodes of "Ace of Cakes" on the Food Network. And somehow he came to believe that I was capable of creating this fish cake, despite the fact that I have only ever decorated a cake once. Like ever. And it had plastic flowers and toy snakes on it -- it did not require any sort of specialized cake knowledge.

Still, it was all he wanted, and he kept pestering me about it, so there was no escaping the fish cake.

I'm a decent baker, but I just used a red velvet cake mix for this. I figured I would have to put in plenty of work on the outside, so I was just gonna let the inside take care of itself. I baked it, waited for it to cool, carved out a simple fish cake, covered it in icing, and came to understand that fondant is very, very sticky and difficult to work with. (I also learned that it takes four days for black food coloring gel to come out from under your fingernails. Ew.)

So...in the end it was sort of shaped like a fish, and it was the smooth grey that I had imagined, but other than that it looked sort of stupid to me. My Step-Dad loved it, though!

I'm just going to chock this one up as a "learning experience," and keep baking things that taste good, regardless of whether or not they resemble cartoon animals.