Sharkquestrian

For my first entry of 2011 I picked the Sharquestrian design. For the cake I baked a pumpkin spice cake in a ball pan, and made a dark chocolate gananche.

I carved the general shark-y shape out of the cake, covered it in ganache, and then a layer of modeling chocolate. I painted the shark with Everclear mixed with gel food color. The rider is a combination of gumpaste and modeling chocolate.

I picked this cake for a first entry for a relatively small and simpler design. Of course, as soon as I started working on it I realized how much detail the design actually had:) The most painstaking part of this cake was cutting out gumpaste teeth and placing them all in the mouth with a tweezers.

I think it turned out relatively well, but I could definitely tell I hadn't had any time to make a cake before this since Easter. Also, I tried both with and without the flash and couldn't get any pics that really reflected the colors without either washing out the colors or dulling them.

Hope you like it, and hope I get a chance to make a few more entries now that I got some of the rust out of my caking skills:)