How to make a sushi cake

One of my other fun projects the other week was to make a sushi cake for a little boy, who loves to eat, sushi! 

His mother sent me 3 photos of his favourite types of sushi, and then I had to turn it into a cake design.

So, we decided to go with the usual side kicks of sushi – soy sauce, chopsticks, wasabi dollop, and sliced pickled ginger.

It turned out really cute, I must say. The sushi was so fun to make, that I had to take a few photos to show you a step by step process.

Unfortunately my camera was AWOL the day I was making the sushi, so I had to use my Iphone to snap the pics. Apologies for the poor quality.

First step. Make the rice. I had to make ikura gunkan-maki (salmon roe), salmon nigiri, and tamago sushi (egg sushi). So, knead a small amount of white gumpaste into a pliable consistency. Then roll it out into thin, long strips about 1/2cm thickness. Try to get it even, then cut away 1/4 cm pieces (or smaller), with a small paring knife, until the entire strip is used up.

Then, to shape the rice, you will need lots of patience here. Take each piece, place in the palm of your hand. With your fingertip, roll the end bit of the piece into a tapered shape, with a backward and forward movement. Repeat on the other side, until you are satisfied that it resembles a grain of rice.

To the right, the original bits of icing I started out with. To the left, the rice grains.

 So, when you think you have enough. Start again, and make some more. Whenever I make fiddly, tiny things like filler flowers, or buds for flowers, I always keep going and going, until I can go no more. You always need more than anticipated.

Sorry. With the rice grains. This is a rule of thumb here. Make as many as you can, then leave them to dry for 30 minutes or so.

Next step. Making the sushi centres. The 3 different kinds of sushi have similar shapes. So instead of packing a whole bunch of fondant rice together to form the shape of the sushi, I formed a ball of white fondant into an oval shape. This acts as the “bulk” of the sushi rice. Do this for all 3 types. Then, use sugar glue to stick the “rice grains” all over the ball of fondant. This creates the illusion that it really is a ball of rice.

The egg omellette was made from pale yellow fondant, then rolling it out quite thick. Cut it into a rectangle shape, round of the corners, then use a sharp knife to create lines all over it. Stick it onto the “rice” with sugar glue, and let it curve over the sides a little.

The nori sheet. You can see it’s so thin, you can clearly see the shapes of palm of my hand and fingers.

The finished sushi decorations, let ot dry.