Shark Cake, Ooh Ha Ha!

Did you know you're more likely to be killed by a cow than a shark? Not in a "When Burgers Bite Back" situation, but these are still good facts to know. And if you're somehow unaware, SHARK WEEK STARTS TONIGHT! I am obsessed with sharks, so next to Halloween, this is the absolute best time to be me (or maybe a shark). But sharks definitely get a bad rap; they can't help the permanent resting shark face or the fact that they're the perfect eating machines...parallels I can definitely relate to...but it's important to learn about sharks and respect their habitat since they were there before we were. And definitely before those killer cows, too. I wanted to mako something great to kick off the start of my favorite week of the year, so enter, Shark Cake, Ooh Ha Ha!

You could say its Jawsdropping.

 Look, I've been covered in a severe poison ivy rash for two weeks straight. Is it testing the limits of my sanity? Do I look like a plague-addled nightmare? Yes and yes, but there was no way I was going to shark my baking responsibilities. I figured a day in the kitchen keeping my hands from itching temptation would be just the ticket, and it was. This gorgeous Oreo-flavored chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting is something I've been kicking around in the ole' noggin for a couple years, and I finally wanted to execute my shark-scape. I couldn't be happier with how the ocean depth painting turned out, but let's be reel here, this is definitely a cake worthy of whipping people up into a feeding frenzy. At only 284 calories a slice for 8 slices (or 227 calories for 10 slices), you can pound like 12 burgers, some fries, a license plate or two, and still get this to fit in your macros for the day (might leave out the license plates if you're not an actual shark though).

Watch out for that cow.

The cake and frosting are super simple to make. All you need for the Oreo cake is:

• 1 box of chocolate cake mix (I use Whole Food's gluten free mix)
• 1/4 cup + 2 TBS (64 grams) egg whites or 3 whole eggs
• 1/2 cup (111 grams) unsweetened applesauce
• 3/4 cup fat free or skim milk
• 1 ounce of black cocoa (this is what makes it taste like an Oreo, don't skip it!)

Preheat your oven to 350 and prepare three 6-inch round pans with Parchment and cooking spray. Two 8-inch rounds would also work, but your cook time will vary. Dump all your ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer and give it a whirl on medium for 1-2 minutes until things have come together. Pour out the batter evenly into each pan and bake for 24 minutes. A toothpick should come out mostly clean.

Don't forget bake even strips if you've got 'em!

Once cooked, remove your pans from the oven and place on top of a cooling rack. Give it 10 minutes before you turn your cakes out of the pan and onto the cooling rack to come to room temp. I speed this process up by shoving the cooling rack into the fridge for 30-45 minutes. While that's cooling, you can make your shark templates. 

Excuse my dungeon lighting...it was storming and this house is like a cave without natural light.

To make my sharks, I used pencil to draw some shark outlines on Parchment paper in varying sizes and types; Great White and Hammerhead to be precise. I didn't think a Goblin shark would translate well...

Hammerheads were difficult enough, but that would've been hilarious.

Once drawn, I grabbed my X-acto knife and carefully cut out the outlines. I have yet to seriously injure myself with my X-acto knife, but those blades are probably as sharp as a shark's tooth, so, give it time because I am a disaster.

I mean, you can definitely tell it's a shark, and I didn't lose a finger to make it happen.

Small, sharky miracles.

Now, you want to keep the full sheets, not the pieces you cut out. These will work as your templates. Once I had my cakes frosted and knew how much overlap I needed, I cut each into smaller squares so I could move them around the cake easily.

That black cocoa came in clutch with this whole cake, TBH.

This is just a basic cream cheese frosting, so feel free to play with different extracts to flavor your frosting. Coconut extract, caramel extract, or even root beer extract would probably taste awesome with the Oreo cake flavor. This makes a lot of frosting (I only used half and froze the rest). You need:

• 8 ounces 1/3 the fat cream cheese at room temp
• 1/2 cup (112 grams) light butter (leave cold)
• 4 cups (a whole bag) of Lakanto powdered monkfruit (or regular powdered sugar)
• 1 TBS (36 grams) vanilla extract
• 1 tsp black cocoa powder
• Gel dyes in black, light blue, blue, and navy
• Absolutely fintastic shark cupcake toppers (Amazon!)
  

Start by whipping the cold butter and cream cheese together until fluffy, 2 minutes. Add in half the powdered sugar and all the vanilla extract. Mix well, then add the rest of the powdered sugar. Hold off on the black cocoa for right now. You'll use this later once the cake is fully covered for the sharks.

But first, you must frost.

Stack, fill, and cover your entire cake in plain white frosting first. Set this in the fridge while you dye your frosting to make the ocean background.

I'm blue, da ba dee da ba daa...

In two bowls, place a heaping amount of plain white frosting. Dye one light blue, and then in the other, mix blue and navy blue gel dyes to achieve a rich, dark blue hue. Now, grab your cake!

Oh look, it's my poison ivy rash in cake form. SPOTS EVERYWHERE.

Itching intensifies. Okay, okay, with a small angled spatula, just plop drops of light blue and dark blue frosting all over the place. There's absolutely no rhyme or reason here, you just want a sort of even balance. Once you've done that, you just need to come back in with an angled spatula or scraper, and gently scrape the sides of the cake until your colors are blending together. I would make a pass around the whole cake, clean off my scraper, and make another pass. I did this 3 times and followed the same suit on top.

The ocean is calling...

But you might want to test the waters first.

I used an angled spatula to make swirls all around the top and top side of the cake to give it a wave texture. Now, chill this cake for 30 minutes in the fridge or 15 in the freezer so your black frosting doesn't bleed into it. To make the black frosting, take your leftover blues, dump them together, add that teaspoon of black cocoa and some black gel dye, and you're ready to get sharky.

Cue the Jaws theme!

To start, I obviously couldn't wait to use the cupcake toppers, so I stuck a circle of them around the edge and one in the middle of the cake. Was I giddy with shark-loving delight while I did so? Yes. I believe I also used my hand as a makeshift shark fin on top of my head and chased my dogs around for a second (there were no casualties). You could also use chocolate melts to make smaller dorsal fins, but I'm itchier than a thousand mosquito bites, so give me a small break (and scratch) for corner-cutting.

Take your stencil, you can see I trimmed the edges down so that I could easily place it on the side of my cake, and very gently press into the surface. I used a paintbrush to push the small edges down into the frosting layer.

This part is truly terrifying. Like, scarier than the idiot mayor from Jaws.

I was afraid I'd miss a spot and the whole stencil was gonna look more like a blob fish than a shark. But, I took a decent amount of black frosting and spread it evenly over my stencil. I used my scraper to make one pass over the whole stencil, then, whilst holding my breath, very gently peeled the stencil off the side of the cake.

Oh you big beautiful fish.

I repeated this process around the cake, making some sharks swim toward one another, others away, on varying heights. Just be careful you're not overlapping too much because pushing the template down in one area could mess up another design.

I've reached peak Shark Week.

This is Bruce. Fish are friends, not food.

But this guy is shifty and will eat literally anyone.

Like my derpy little Hammerheads.

Just dying to sink my teeth into this cake.

I am so happy with how this turned out. It's a little rough in places, but so are sharks, so just go with me on this one. You know, there's somefin for everyone. Sharks are absolutely fascinating powerhouses and sadly very misunderstood. Something actually called a Killer Whale gets to play at SeaWorld, while sharks get the short end of the stick. I mean, they can't help it that by default sharks kinda have to hug using their mouth. But I digress...I am glad I finally executed this cake. It was a lot of fun to use the templates, and depending on your design and color palette, you could really go into a design frenzy with this one for sure. Oh, let's not forget that Oreo cake. I'd definitely bite your arm off to get another slice, so fear me more than the shark (I have land capabilities). It is a rich, chocolatey goodness that's still nice and moist without being too heavy. And in my book, there's no better frosting than cream cheese, so together, these two really do make an Oreo cookie in cake form,so we'll be chowing down on this cake all week while we enjoy new episodes of SHARK WEEK! 'Til next time, my fellow eaters.

Stay jawesome!