Baking Attempt Turns Into An Interesting Sushi Cake for this NJ Family

Sushi cake? What in the world is a sushi cake? What kind of disgusting concoction is this? That sounds absolutely gross.

And, why would you even recommend I make this for anyone? All fantastic questions, and we'll start off with the obvious - is that really fish on a cake?

The answer to this is no. Despite the name sushi cake, it is, in reality, just cake, frosting, and fondant. Here's how this crazy idea came to be.

An idea by two Jersey boys

Both of my 9 year old twin sons wanted to make something for my wife (their mom) for Mother's Day. But instead of a card or something like that (which for the record, they also did), they wanted to actually make her something in the kitchen.

My one son wanted to make her sushi rolls because my wife loves sushi. Vegetable sushi though since dealing with raw fish at home really isn't the smartest thing to do.

My other son wanted to bake her a dessert like a cake. Yes, my two 9 year old twin sons wanted to do all this for their mom, and I was all for it.

For the record, I have made vegetable sushi before, but it is a lot of work. And to throw a cake in there and wait to do it all on one day was quite a big task. There's no way we'd be able to do it all in such a short period of time.

Compromise

So my sons had to come up with something that was a bit more manageable. They decided why not combine their ideas into one?

Thus the idea of a sushi cake rolls was born. But, it didn't pan out the way they had hoped. Now I will tell you that I initially thought they were just going to make little sushi rolls out of fondant and put it on top of the cake they wanted to bake.

They had a different idea. They wanted to cut the cake up and actually turn it into dessert sushi rolls with the fondant. That didn't hold up well.

The problem was the texture of the cake. Simply put, it was too crumbly to hold up. Probably would've been a better idea to make small little cupcakes instead.

A quick pivot

With two chunks of the cake now removed that were no good for their original vision, they thought the entire project was ruined. They even got a little upset at first.

But once we realized the cake now resembled a tree, they decided, why not make it a sushi tree cake? And that's exactly what they did.

They went to work and rolled the fondant the best they could to resemble sushi. They even made leaves and wasabi as part of the decoration. And at the tree stump? They made it look like a rose, just so they could have a flower on it for their mom.

A not-so-perfect cake

The end result was, well, not quite the idea they had in mind. The sushi rolls made of fondant didn't look the way they had hoped, and the cake itself was kind of butchered.

But that didn't matter in the long run because it's the thought, care, and effort that counts. And they wanted to do it for their mom.

This was a first attempt of such a project with them, and my sons did great every step of the way. Now that we have a benchmark, we'll strive to do better next time.

As for the cake itself? It may not look pretty but I have to tell you, it was quite delicious! A Jersey dessert sushi tree cake, who knew?

NEXT: I just got my NJ Real ID - Here are the issues I ran into at MVC you should know about

The above post reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 Sunday morning host & content contributor Mike Brant. Any opinions expressed are his own.