Filet-O-Yum!

Ah, Filet-O-Fish®, how I love thee! My steady companion during Lent and quiet sidekick the rest of the year, you bring me both joy and sorrow. You are tasty, and yet you taunt me with your silly half-slice of cheese. Why, oh why, do you satisfy while leaving me yearning for that missing half of melty American cheese?

It's no surprise that I'm a big fan of this most delicious and unhealthy sandwich, so it's only fitting that I would try to memorialize it as a cake in honor of my co-worker's birthday. He is also quite the avid fan of Filet-O-Fish®, maybe even more so than I am!

Here's a breakdown of the components (from the top down):

• Cream cheese icing
• Cake baked in a shallow 2 qt. oven-proof bowl
• "Tartar Sauce" made of icing and chopped green & white candy disks
• Cream cheese icing
• Uniced cake, baked in 9x13" pan, center cut out to fit
• More icing
• "Cheese" made from candy melt ganache*
• Iced round 8" cake
  

*Chop 3 oz. orange candy disks and melt with about 1 Tbl. cream. Pour onto a parchment covered baking sheet and refrigerate. When nearly firm, cut out rectangle shape. Leave on parchment, but discard the excess trimmings. Put back in fridge until needed. When ready to assemble, invert the firm 'cheese' onto the iced bottom 'bun' and peel off parchment. As it reaches room temperature, it will soften and droop a bit. Cool!

Things to try next time:

1. Use more batter in the bowl, and bake separately from other cakes. Glass browns baked goods more quickly than metal pans, so lower oven temp. by 25°F. Duh, I knew this but wasn't thinking.


2. Make the bottom bun in a 9" round pan for a more proportional finished product. My filet overfloweth!