Parramatta Eels cake

My friend asked me to decorate a cake for her dad’s 60th birthday. She had a fruit cake ready to go and the only request was that it had a Parramatta Eels theme.

(For any non-Aussies, the Parramatta Eels is one of our major Rugby League clubs. They’re iconic in football).

Oh dear, this was not one of my best works… but that’s the fun of learning!!

I was kind of organised and managed to make a 3D eel in advance without the final details but I didn’t really think through the ‘how’ of sticking it to the cake… and that was my biggest mistake!

So on decorating day, the white fondant went on well, the piping in yellow sealed the cake well, the stars were dry and ready to stick in and I knew I had to include a ’60’. Lying the eel flat didn’t achieve the look I wanted… I had imagined the eel to look more like a 3D model than a 2D image. So after mucking around with different designs and positions of the eel, I decided on putting it standing up on the side. My dilemma was that I had only put details on one side of the eel – there was only 1 eye, half the fin on its head and no spots on the back so I had to cover up my dodgy work…!

I then added some yellow piping on the back and tried to make another eye but oh boy, it looked pretty bad. I ran out of time and had to hand it over as it was. Overall the whole cake looked ok but the back of it was not very impressive…

Sorry to sound so negative about the whole thing but I was quite disappointed in the back view of the cake and as a result did not take any photos to share (so I wouldn’t be reminded of my disaster!) My friend and her family loved the cake and the point was that it tasted good so the guests also thought it was wonderful but me being quite critical of my own work could only see the flaws… live and learn!