Fish Tank Cake.... harder than it sounds

So it turns out that making cake look transparent is quite difficult so making a fish tank cake was pretty darn challenging. Nychole's husband has several salt water fish tanks and so she wanted to celebrate that hobby in cake. The cake was 8-inches tall, 8-inches long, and 6-inches wide. It has two separate cake flavors, one stacked on the other. The top flavor is a Coconutty Almond Cake (coconut cake layered with coconut buttercream, light coconut cream filling, sliced almonds, and coconut flakes... I know it sounds like a lot of coconut but it's actually quite a nice balance) and the bottom flavor was Chunky Monkey Cake (chocolate cake layered with chocolate ganache, banana cream filling, and banana slices).

In order to pull this off to look as much like a real fish tank as possible, I layered fondant to look like coral popping out of the cake then I covered the whole cake in marshmallow fondant. Then I molded the fondant around the coral so it really looks like it's coming out of the tank. I sprayed the cake with a light sky blue color even though water in a fish tank doesn't look blue at all (weird!). The sand at the bottom of the tank is brown sugar stuck to the side (a genius idea by my new apprentice, Alex). I have to thank Alex for all of her help on this cake. She's more of a perfectionist than I am!! Anyway, here's another view of the cake for you.