I need cake icing ideas please

[Tinsel]

DH and I are making a cake in the shape of a Flathead fish for FIL's birthday but I need some ideas on what to use for the icing. Flathead fish are quite dark with lots of light spots kind of like camo print. I was thinking a basic chocolate icing for the base but not sure what to use for the spots on top.

Also, I was thinking of a either a choc or white choc mudcake. Is this kind of cake easy to cut up and ice?

[nic]

Could you use the mini choc drops? think they are called choc bits??

eta: thought of something else, but just remembered you said you were using choc icing, so not sure it would look all that good, but you could colour some sugar or buy some of the Wilton cake glitter/sparkles? Would give it a pretty shiny fish look possibly?

Nic

[Tinsel]

Thanks Nic. I hadn't thought of the mini choc drops so will give that a go on our test cake.

The glitter sounds lovely so will check that out too.

[curl]

You can make a ganache icing to make it richer if you like and maybe swirl a small amount of melted white chocolate through to marble it a bit. Also, the glitter idea sounds great. Coloured sugar crystals can be bought in the cake mix aisle of the supermarket if you weren't confident with making your own. I have a Blackwood Lane container which has six colours. The colours are Rose Pink, Cerulean Blue, Golden Sand, Bittersweet Orange, Moss Green and Sunshine Yellow.

Good luck.

Curl

[LimeSlice]

mmm...cake...

Sorry, what about freckles?

mmm...freckles...Can I have some cake too? lol

Let us know how you go!

[nic]

Tinsel,
If you can check out your local newsagent for a copy of the Women's Weekly party animals, kids birthday cake book, there is a little cupcake on page 73 that is of a fish with the choc bits.
I think they way they layered the choc bits looks pretty cool

forgot to add, have you checked out google images? You might be able to get some other ideas from there too?
Nic

[Rouge]

You can also get some cool icing spray dye by cake mate I think. A lot of cake decorating stores stock it. It comes in a range of colours. So you could do the cake in whatever design you liked and then spray it with a colour that suits for the fish.

[Tinsel]

Nic, I have a Womans Weekly kids cookbook and didn't even think to look in there - durrr. Thanks for the reminder. I have googled and I found this most gorgeous cupcake that someone made and covered it in chocolate icing with glitter. It looks spectacular.

Niliac, I have seen the spray dye on the web which looks great. I might have to check out our cake decorating stores.

curl, I've not made ganache icing before as I am a bit of a novice but will give it a go on our test cake. The marble idea sounds good and could work. My local supermarket doesn't seem to have as many icing products as they used to so will hunt around.

LimeSlice, LOL. Freckles might not go with our design for this one but you can't go past freckles for a bit of fun on a cake. I love cake too and now that I am at home with bubs, I really need to curb my sweet tooth!

Thanks for your ideas everyone.