Meatloafy the Whale

So I have a friend who is a great aficionado of Carvel's "Fudgie the Whale" ice cream cakes. Upon his request this friend's wife is purchasing an F. Whale for his b-day soiree. Regrettably I will be unable to attend on the scheduled date. As these particular friends are very social and gracious hosts it just so happened that they were having a small gathering this very weekend. I decided to deliver a little whale shaped food product of my own to make up for missing the b-day festivities. Hence, "Meatloafy the Whale" was born.

I began with two baking pans full of my standard meatloaf mix. I used 4 lbs ground chuck, 1 loaf sandwich bread (crusts cut off, soaked in milk), 5 eggs, a hearty squirt of ketchup/mustard/bbq sauce, onion, garlic, paprika, salt, pepper, and about a cup of store bought bread crumbs. I spread the meat into baking pans to about an inch and a half thickness and besmeared with ketchup and bbq sauce. Into the oven at 350 they went for an hour.

I made a couple "Fudgie the Whale" shaped cutouts out of some sturdy paper. I was quite impressed with my whale-cake shape sketching ability.

I cut around the edges of the cutout and removed the tasty meatloaf trimmings (for sammitches). I was left with two beautiful loaf-whales (I confess to giggling at my own food-wit like an idiot at this point).

I carefully flipped a whale half onto a sheet of greased aluminum. To simulate Carvel's trademark chocolate "crunchies" I used bacon bits (what else?) glued on with some of my homemade mustard bbq sauce.

I flipped the other half on top. I made sure the bottom was up so that I would have a flat surface to decorate. If you are wondering about the odd skin-like surface of the whale-loaf this is due to my anti-sticking measure of greasing the pan and coating with bread crumbs. You end up with a weird greasy bread layer but you usually have zero sticking.

Anyhow, I used mashed tatties as the frosting about the edges.

Next I piped on some mashed tattie florets.

Finally, I covered the top with some dark bbq sauce to simulate the "fudge" and then piped on a tater face. I crushed up some potato chips and pressed them into the sides to simulate the nuts on an F. Whale.

There you have it folks, "Meatloafy the Whale."

I think Meatloafy was a big hit. Everyone likes meat and whimsy and I think the idea of a meat-whale tickled the child-like fancies of many of those present at the gathering. I make pretty good meatloaf too so the loaf-whale was more then mere eye candy.

Here is Meatloafy the Whale after first blood was drawn from his blubbery midsection.

And here is the mighty meat-cetacean after my pack of shark-like friends had at him. Only Meatloafy's jaunty expression was left unscathed by the feeding frenzy.

Anyhow, I haven't posted one of my weirdo food experiments in quite some time so I hope you enjoyed this. If it is wrong for a 32 year old grown-ass man to be mucking about in his kitchen making meat-whales for his friends, well... then I just don't want to be right.