Beneath the Ocean Deep

I instantly fell in love with this design as soon as I saw it. I did second guess my decision once with a different design but this one spoke to me on so many levels. See I have just moved from Okinawa, Japan where the Coy Fish is a very symbolic animal and the water and beach is just everything, breath taking really, this design just brought back so many memories so I had to do it. I also have a HUGE obsession with watercolor so that played another major role! I enlarged the image to the size I wanted and we heated our PVC pipe to get the curvature that reflected the design. I then made modeling chocolate and 50/50 modeling chocolate and fondant to use to create the design. I covered the PVC with modeling chocolate and started making the water, once that was complete I sculpted the Coy Fish from 50/50 and added it to the PVC. Now for the details! I cut out and pressed all of the leaves, hand ruffled the long back fin and fins, and added the eyes. I started to add texture to the fish to create scales but I didn't like that look and cut out ovals so it matched the design better. After that I went back to sculpting, I started the fairy and her extremities, the accent leaves, and the coy fish whiskers then added them all to the fish. Phew! Next up was covering the board with fondant and making the cake sea shell. I baked up our famous homemade chocolate cake, (4) 6" rounds and a new light caramel buttercream. I took 2 cake rounds cut them in half and cut off 1/4 of them. I filled and pressed them all together sitting cut side down, I didn't level them either because the dome helped with the sea shell curvature. With the cut pieces I took and put them on each end to help create the perfect shape. Carve,carve, carve away to make the unique shell shape, I crumb coated, put in to chill, added final coat of frosting, chilled again, then covered in the 50/50 MC/fondant. I added strips and curved them to add more texture. I used a ball tool to add all of the texture to the shell. This was added to the board and then the little water waves coming out of the shell were added. Now the FUN part, WATERCOLOR!!!! It was a bit difficult to get the colors exact but I colored away trying to add all the right colors in the right places, going over spots many times to get the colors darker. My daughter was very excited to get a slice of this cake, mainly because it was chocolate!