I make birthday cakes for each of my boys. I don't use fondant -- I strive for "tasty" -- so it can get a bit crazy.

Artemis has an imagination. As is typical, he asked for something unusual for his 22nd birthday cake. Here's the reference art:

How hard could this be? What could possibly go wrong?

I started out with a couple of basic cakes, side-by-side.

The box was set. So far, so good.

There were two challenges for this cake:

1. The rolled up lid.
2. The intricate style of the reference box.

The lid screamed, "cake roll!" I'd never done one, but as a fan of Ho Hos, I was ready to try. I found this
recipe and it was surprisingly straightforward.

Then I worked on the rest of the design. I found this as reference art for the sardines:

I combined that with Artemis's drawn plan, and voila!