The Queue: Shark Cake

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Fact: Anne Stickney (@Shadesogrey) is pretty much the Best Aunt Ever™.

My youngest nephew turned four this week and my whole giant family gathered together to celebrate it yesterday. I decided it would be nice to make a cake for the munchkin, and asked my sister what he would like. "A shark cake," my sister replied.

I had absolutely no idea how to go about making a shark cake, but after scouring the internet, my mother's old cookbooks, and looking at various suggestions thrown to me on Twitter, I managed to come up with a satisfactory shark cake. Munchkin was delighted, and promptly requested the entire tail fin, which he didn't finish eating.

He's four. Mostly he just wants the frosting anyway.

GarrettBeck asked:

I've done a bunch of fishing but I am yet to catch any of the fish you need to turn in for Nat Pagle rep. Are there any know issues with these items or am I just unlucky? Is there any alternative to catching these dumb fish?

Shark cake, fish question. It's like we've got some crazy mental connection going on.

Sadly Garrett, Nat really isn't interested in cloth. Nor is he interested in shiny swords, fabulous amounts of gold, rare and exotic herbs, or even a home-cooked meal. No, Nat's entire existence is solely fixated on fish, and fishing. He lives fish. He breathes fish. If he could be a fish, he ... well, he wouldn't be a fish because mostly he's interested in catching the little guys and possibly eating them later.

You're gonna be fishing a lot if you want to be best friends with Nat. Fishing is what he loves the most, so this seems only appropriate -- if a little weird.

NathanWatson asked:

Q4tQ Thinking about making an application for a wow insider position. But what about applications from England, would they be accepted. Especially as I play on EU servers.

As long as you can legally work where you live, you'll be fine. We have a variety of writers from all over the world!

hrwinter asked:

Q4TQ: I don't know anything about TCG. How do people get these rare things in games from cards? Do you buy card packs? Are there certain packs to buy? Or have all those come out already and there aren't any new things? I ask because I see say, Mottled Drake, on eBay for around $400 and wonder where they even got that card.

You can get the loot cards from packs of the WoW TCG, found at several retailers. Some packs have loot codes -- but the better the loot, the rarer the card. So it's kind of a gamble on whether or not you'll really get anything from the packs that you purchase. If you'd rather not press your luck, you can get the loot cards from ebay, or from websites like WoWTCGLoot.com, which sells nothing but loot cards. Either that, or you can keep your eyes on the Black Market Auction House on your server, because you'll occasionally see TCG loot pop up there, too.

Koboi_K asked:

Q4tQ: Are the Sha restricted to Pandaria?

As far as we know, yes. The Sha are the last breath of the Old God Y'shaarj, who died on Pandaria thousands of years ago.

@rpandagirl asked via Twitter:

I'm going to try for the WoWinsider job opening. Any tips? I guess what I'm saying is, any type of article (queue, breakfast topic, etc.) that wouldn't be as good as others?

Like Alex said yesterday -- take your time with your application. You've got until Jan. 8 to get it in. As far as topics ... well, short topics. Basically I would suggest looking at the sort of things that both Olivia and myself write a lot of. Not the long lore posts, or the roleplaying columns, or the PvP columns, but the short little news posts on bits of this and that from around the web. Writing up a sample Breakfast Topic would be a great example of that, or if you want to make a short mock Queue, I bet that would be pretty cool too.

Make sure you check your work for spelling and grammatical errors before you hit send -- both of these things are incredibly important when you're looking for work as a writer. You want to put your best foot forward. And if you have any experience writing, whether it be a WoW blog or a blog covering a different sort of hobby, be sure to link to it. It gives a really good idea of what you're capable of. Good luck!

@restokin asked via Twitter:

Since my autism game research will have 2 days left for crowdfunding, can you plug it again in the queue?

Consider it done, and good luck!

@Orkchop asked via Twitter:

Q4tQ: How did you make Shark Cake? That is a spectacular looking cake!

Thank you! He is made from three 9" round cakes. Layer two of them for the round body, and then cut the pieces for the tail and fins from the third cake. I used teal food coloring with a touch of black to tint the body color, and dark chocolate frosting where his mouth was going to go.

The mouth is marshmallow fondant, which you can find a simple recipe for in World of WarCrafts. After rolling the fondant out flat, cut out the shape of the nose and mouth area -- check the photo for a better reference. Then cut out the smile. Use that piece you just cut out for the smile to carve into shark teeth. You can use fondant for the eyes too if you'd like, or just pipe them on with some frosting, or if you want to get really creative, I hear a Junior Mint makes a perfect shark eye, with the added bonus of being incredibly tasty. Have fun!

Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column. Leave your questions in the comments, and we'll do our best to answer 'em!