I Decorated a Sushi Roll Cake!

Due to traveling out of town for a few days (which I will probably talk about in my next post), I have neither the time nor the energy to write about comics this week. Well, more like I lack the energy to pull together the images for any comics-related posts. Fortunately, this isn’t a comics blog, it’s a “things that make me happy” blog. And my wife and I had an experience recently that was a lot of fun that I want to tell you about: we took a cake decorating class at Freed’s Bakery, where we decorated a sushi roll cake.

When we arrived at the bakery, they had set up a number of stations with directions, templates, tools, and supplies.

The directions were pretty straightforward, and one of Freed’s decorators walked us through the entire thing.

The various colors of fondant we would be using were already separated out into individual baggies.

(Please excuse the lack of photos for some steps; I was having too much fun to take phots every step of the way.)

The first thing we did was mix the black and green fondant together to make a darker green, similar to the nori wrapping of a sushi roll. Using a paper template, we cut it into the size and shape we needed, then rolled that around cakes that had already been baked and frosted with buttercream. Finally, we trimmed the wrapping so it fit evenly around the cake.

Next, we began making the “filling” pieces (just toppings, actually) based on the template with which we had been provided.

My wife and I made the lighter and darker green pieces meant to look like a piece of avocado changing color as it oxidized. 

It was a pretty hard transition, rather than a blending, so it’s not a photorealistic piece of avocado.

Next we made the pieces of cucumber by rolling out a flat piece of light green fondant, then laying a thinner layer of darker green fondant on top, and cutting the whole thing up into squares. I kind of wish we’d managed to get the darker green “skin” a little thinner, but it still works.

Next, we mixed the orange and white fondant together to make a swirl. I was pretty sure I was going to mess this part up, but it turned out pretty well.

We then trimmed the swirled fondant, using the template, to create a pretty realistic looking piece of fatty salmon.

Finally, we made a round platform of orange fondant, then covered it with little crispy spheres and coated it all with an orange gel.

This created the roe.

After that, we rolled out some pink fondant, and bunched it together to make the ginger. I have to admit, I had some trouble seeing what the instructor was doing, and got it wrong at first. The great thing about making stuff out of fondant, though, is you can roll it out and start over again.

I was pretty sure I was going to mess the next part up, too: the chopsticks. As with the salmon, we swirled a couple of shades of fondant together to look a bit like wood grain. I shaped one, and my wife shaped the other. I think they both came out looking pretty good! (Although clearly not to scale with the sushi roll.)

With all the toppings ready to be assembled, we went back to our wrapped cake, brushing non-stick spray on the outside to give it a sheen more closely resembling seaweed.

We assembled the pieces on top of the cake, and once they were all together, they looked pretty effective, I think.

Next came the “rice,” in the form of white sprinkles. So many sprinkles.

Finally, using bright green buttercream, my wife squeezed out a blob of “wasabi,” right next to the ginger.

The bakery added the final touch—a chocolate disk with their logo on it—and we were done! Overall, I am very impressed with how it turned out. It looks very slick and professional. I wouldn’t have been ashamed to bring this cake to a party.

But we didn’t bring it to a party. We brought it home and ate it, and it was pretty good.

This week, I have only one highlight from 2000 AD prog 2141, because I only just received prog 2142 as I was writing this. So that will have to wait until next time.

While it’s tough to pick a highlight with so many good stories currently running, I decided this week to single out the first installment of Control, the new Judge Dredd story starting this week.

Written by Rob Williams and illustrated by Chris Weston, this picks up from earlier stories featuring serial killer SJS Judge Pin, who has been killing off judges she does not see as fit for duty.

I have really come to look forward to Rob Williams’s work in 2000 AD, even to the point that his name sold me on the new Roy of the Rovers series, as detailed last time. And I am a complete sucker for stories that show how human flaws affect the justice system. After all, a government enforced by officers who are judge, jury and executioner, needs to be infallible. But, if it’s humans doing the judging, infallibility is completely impossible. So stories that point out the highly flawed reality against the (still twisted, still fascist, still oppressive) ideal really have my attention.

And any story drawn by Chris Weston also has my attention. I love his highly detailed style, and am happy any time he appears in these pages (which has been quite a bit, recently). So between the story and art, this first part of Control is definitely my pick of the week.

And that’s it for this week! Next time, I am hoping to talk about my recent trip to Tucson, focusing on my visit to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

See you then!