How to make a fish tank birthday cake with goldfish crackers and Jolly Rancher fruit chews.
Serves 16
Ingredients:
- 1 (10 by 15-inch) cake
- 1 can (16 oz) vanilla frosting
- 1 ½ cups dark chocolate frosting
- Blue food coloring
- 1 cup praline crunch sundae topping
- Mini-colored goldfish crackers (Pepperidge Farm)
- 2 graham crackers
- 8 green Jolly Rancher fruit chews
- 4 spearmint leaves
- 3 tablespoons sugar
What you’ll need:
- 2 resealable sandwich-size plastic bags (Ziploc)
- A serrated knife
Trimming the cake:
- Trim the top of the cake and make smooth.
- Transfer cake, cut side down, onto a serving platter.
Frosting the cake:
- Spoon 2 Tbsp vanilla frosting into a resealable plastic bag.
- Spoon the dark chocolate frosting into a resealable plastic bag.
- Add enough food coloring to the remaining vanilla frosting to tint it a light blue.
- Heat the green Jolly Rancher fruit chews on the microwave for no more than 3 seconds to soften. Roll out the fruit chews and cut them into seaweed shapes as pictured.
- Sprinkle a little sugar onto your work surface to prevent sticking. Roll the spearmint leaves out in the sugar. Cut the flattened green leaves into long oval shapes and twist, as pictured.
- Using a serrated knife, cut the graham crackers into tower shapes.
- Spread the blue frosting over the top and the sides of the cake. Make smooth.
To complete the decoration:
- Press the praline crunch in an uneven line along the bottom edge of cake for the sand.
- Press the graham cracker tower, the seaweed-shaped fruit chews, the twisted spearmint ovals, and the goldfish crackers all over the cake.
- Snip a very small corner from the bags with the vanilla and dark chocolate frostings. Pipe white dots above the goldfish crackers for bubbles. Pipe dark chocolate eyes onto the goldfish crackers.
- Enlarge the cut corner in the bag with the dark chocolate frosting to ¼ inch. Pipe a border with the chocolate frosting to create the outline of the fish tank.
Cake Anatomy: