Hi there... I am pretty new at cake decorating, but when I do a cake up I usually get a pretty cool cake out if it all . So I was asked by some friends to do their parents 50th anniversary cake but I wanted to do something off the wall but still kinda traditional for these traditional people. I came up with adding a small bowl with a goldfish to the tiers of cake to add height... going with the golden anniversary theme I thought this was pretty neat and different... but now the time is ticking and I have simple weeks to get this done and I am now panicing about how to go about doing this.. if anyone has ANY ideas AT ALL on how I could do this PLEASE let me know...

a LIVE goldfish? I would question the sanitation of that, and for the health of the fish. Like those purses and shoes and plants with goldfish in them. How about an elegant blue tiered cake with fancy gold goldfish (the ones that look like bettas) around it?

Sorry same person, different idea. What if you did one of those mosiacs/ stained glass with the kois on them style on the cake. That would be very elegant and kois are very shiny. Perhaps a little lustre dust to show them off more?

If you figure out a way to support a small bowl on top of the cake, I would suggest finding a bowl that can have some kind of top on it. You can put small holes in the top to allow for air, but then the fish won't splash the cake and nothing can get in the bowl, either.

I was thinking Goldfish crackers! I'm not sure if people would get the connection?

Wilton has a cake tier that is a round "glass" bowl. You could probably use that.

I bet you could find a fancy goldfish mold so you could just mold the goldfish and then paint them! (Monicas idea! Love it btw!)

Here is one I found... I will look for more...

http://www.firstimpressionsmolds.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2372

I've made a Nemo Birthday cake and used a real goldfish in the bottom. I used a bowl (.97 at Wal-mart) and put the cake together about 1/2 hour before the party. I actually kept the fish alive for 8 months in that little bowl. I'm pretty new here so I'm not sure how you could find my cake, but if you search nemo birthday, my cake is the 3 tiered blue cake. If you need better pictures of the fishbowl, just e-mail me at [email protected].

Good Luck

stfd211, that cake came out pretty. Look at your own post on this thread. See on the bottom where there is a button that says "photos"? If you click on that, only YOUR photos will be displayed. If you click on that button on anybody's post, you will see only thier photos. That's how I looked at yours ... no need to search.

Welcome to cake central!

Everybody, I think what SweetSnow is trying to accomplish by the live goldfish in the bowl is the "wow" effect. If she didn't do that; I bet she would scratch the goldfish theme of the cake ... am I right SweetSnow?

If you use dowels and a cake plate to support the bowl you should be fine - it would not be any different than a cake with a fountain in the middle tier. Goldfish don't splash water out of the bowl - I would fill the bowl to about 2" away from the top so you can't spill any water while placing it on the cake. Take a look at some pictures of cakes with fountains, that should give you an idea. If you are really worried about sanitary issues, cover the cake that the fish will be sitting on with a cake round and frost it to look like the top of the cake, that way it will not be seen, but there is no chance of splashing on the cake. Better yet, use a cake dummy to place the fish on and build the rest of the cake around that!

I may be wrong but I don't see a problem with placing a live fish in one of those small fish bowls. It won't be that heavy. Just seal the bowl off somehow (plastic lid, plastic wrap?) right before you stack it and make sure it is well supported. "No live animals will be harmed" in the making of this cake. There will be enough air in the bowl for the few hours it will be stacked before cutting. I think there's definite "WOW" potential here. The only potential problem I see is trying to train the fish not to (um...) poop! There's nothing worse than watching a beautiful gold fish swimming around its bowl with a long "tail" dragging behind its... behind. KWIM?!?

I've seen pics of cakes like this. I think it will be fine as long as the bowl is supprted!

Here you go:

http://www.edencakes.com/portfolio/weddingcakes.php?pic=20

http://www.sptimes.com/2002/04/17/Taste/Wedding_cake_couture.shtml

To my surprise this is all I could find for goldfishbowlcake

I have done goldfish bowl cakes before. The goldfish bowl was on the top layer supported by dowels. Unfortunately I do not have the pics as they both were done a while ago. The inspiration was actually a cake I had seen on the internet that used a fish bowl (tube) as the middle support, but don't know how they did that, allowing the fish to breathe, because the top layer sat on top of it. Go for it and post a picture.