Octopus Cake - Step by Step

First I have to say, that I loved this octopus and I thought it was soooo cute. I wanted to do cupcakes because I thought these would be easy, but Ethan is more of the realistic type & wanted it to look more like a real one. Which to me translated into, a lot more work.

Like this cupcake? You can find it here.
While I was looking for underwater inspiration, I found these cute clams. I tried to convince Ethan to let me put these on top of cupcakes--again, easy.

This is the cake he liked the best because it had coral on it. I admit, I liked the coral too, but look at that cake, it looks like a lot of work. If you want instructions on how to make this one, click on the link above. He liked it, but he didn't want so much stuff on his cake. Thank goodness.

I needed the base to be two different sizes, so I had to borrow some pans because mine are the same size and definitely not as nice as these. I also borrowed the 4 cone pan for the octopus head. Thanks Bernie for saving the day!!

This is the bottom layer, which I think is a 10" pan. I think the top layer was an 8" pan. As you can see the top is not flat, so I had to use one of those cake levelers. Don't know what that is, click here. They are perfect for making the top of the cake flat.

I had left over cake batter, so I made extra cone cakes because I knew I'd need them for the octopus legs too.

The 2 layers of cake put together and frosted. I used canned cream cheese frosting because it was easier than making it, even though I had to make some later anyway because there wasn't enough to frost the legs by the time we got to that point.

Ethan still wanted the clam so we decided to put him on the cake. He informed me that octopus eat clams, so it would be like the octopus was looking at the clam to eat it. Funny boy.

Here is our coral, otherwise known as rice crispy treats. We used strawberry marshmallows because they're yummier and because Ethan said the coral was supposed to be pink anyway. Now this was easier said then done because we live in a small town and I went to 3 stores and they didn't have them. Matthew saved the day, by picking them up at the other grocery store that I knew would have them. Buggin how one store can't have everything I need!!

Here is the coral reef all shaped and plopped on the cake. Matthew did this part with Ethan's directions. The only thing that I would do differently here is put less on the cake because it got heavy and started to pull the octopus apart & droop down the back of the cake. Live and learn, I know. Matthew and I thought long and hard about how we'd do the octopus legs & I came up with the idea to use a cake pop mixture. I've made cake pops in a previous post and I thought we could just use that same recipe because it's shapeable. You can find the recipe here, but it's basically crumbled cake mixed with frosting. I just used more cake, so it wouldn't be so mushy.

Here is what it looks like before it's frosted and without all it's legs, oops I mean arms. Ethan kept telling me over and over that they are not legs, but arms. Look how many times I've already forgotten that in this post :) Anyway, it doesn't look all that appetizing without the frosting, but it is oh so yummy.

Here is what it looks like frosted. Frosting was quite the chore because we had to try and not get it all over the cake, which was blue, and still have it look yummy. I wanted to post this picture so you could see how cool Matthew made the arms look and you can see that in this close up picture. Of course it was his idea to use the sweettarts too. My husband is so creative!!

Here it is without the final touches. We did end up loosing two of the arms, but they were in the back, so no one could tell unless you were looking at it from the back. Like I said, the back of the cake was heavy with all that rice crispy.

This is the final product! See how Ethan made sure I made the pupils looking at the clam.

It's not perfect, but it was actually a lot of fun to make because we all created it together. So, it truly was a work of love and quite tasty if I do say so myself!! Of course, it couldn't have been done without my trusty side-kick of a husband who is a cake decorating fool. Love you!!

We were also reminded about why we only do this every 5 or so years!!

*pics taken 2/5/2010