Cake Artist Creates a Hyperrealistic Life-Sized Octopus Cake With Tentacles That Grip Her Arm

Natalie Sideserf of Sideserf Cake Studio in Austin revisited her hyperrealistic octopus cake, making a life-sized version with a hidden structural skeleton, specialized edible materials, and intricate hand-sculpted details so it could wrap around her arm and stay that way when she removed her appendage.

Is it a real, wet octopus, or is it cake? I built a hyperrealistic, life-sized octopus cake designed to wrap entirely around my real arm without breaking when I let go.

While this process demanded precise engineering and artistic techniques to achieve a lifelike appearance, Sideserf made a rather memorable mistake by giving the octopus only seven arms instead of eight. Luckily, her quick thinking corrected this error in no time.

Seven. I only made seven arms. How did I mess that up? … I have to add an eighth arm right now. … Now I just have to keep sculpting the arms and convince everyone that it was meant to be there the whole time.

Sideserf first made a name for herself with a best-in-show cake bust of Willie Nelson and a Halloween wedding cake made as a pair of bloody severed heads.

Sideserf’s Previous Octopus Cake