in an octopus's garden with you

I am still not sure what prompted this particular baking adventure. I may have seen a cake shaped like a sea creature somewhere, at some previous time but I think I just really wanted to make a shaped cake, in some sort of need to challenge myself, and of course make something totally awesome looking. I figured if I was going to make an octopus cake I should have a plan. So I drew an octopus and then thought about how to go about this baking adventure. I figured I would cook a few basic cakes,

of course sheet cakes would have been sort of more practical, but I only have round pans. And then I started cutting the cakes, and building the head and body,

and finally the many tentacles, arranging them like puzzle pieces and when I had finally reached a configuration which appealed to me, I adhered them together with a basic butter cream frosting.

When it was all laid out (miss matched cause I ended up making two different kinds of cake, cause I couldn't decide) it looked a bit patchwork and iffy, and I wasn't sure what was gonna come of this mad experiment, but I figured I might as well keep going.

So I started adding color to the alarming amount of frosting I had mixed. The cake recipient picked orange and so I started adding red and yellow until I reached the brightest melon color and was very excited, I also added some almond extract, cause it makes basic butter cream just a little bit more exciting.

And then I painstakingly frosted the behemoth beast of a cake. All the curves and edges and tentacles proved quite a challenge, and at one point I was reduced to using the smallest possible knife edge to distribute frosting into the curves of some of the tentacles.

At this point I had to take a break and walk away for a bit. I felt like I was preforming surgery, it was exhausting, but having put this much into it, I was of course required to continue. Keep strong and carry on with visions of a glorious finished product. So I mixed another batch of frosting, this time in the palest blue shade.

And sorted out my decorating paraphernalia, including cherrio cereals for the tentacles and sprinkles for texture on the face. Which I sorted. By color. I swear I'm not crazy.

And finally, after piping accent frosting around the beast, to distinguish the various tentacles and add some more depth as it were, I was ready to unveil my creation.
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And despite this being a mostly-for-show creation, it did taste good too.
Happy Birthday!