When you slice open this toothy cake to reveal the school of fishies in his belly, your party guests will grin. Sorry, fish — in this case, you're food not friends. 🤷

Follow along with this step-by-step tutorial to recreate this impressive dessert, and find the full recipe here.

This cake starts with three 8-inch round cakes and two 6-inch round cakes — get the full recipe for the delicious red velvet layers here. To start building the shark, use a 3 1/2-inch round cookie cutter to remove the centers from two of the 8-inch cakes. You can also remove the center with a serrated knife.

Frost the top of one layer, and top it with the second. (Find instructions for making the buttercream in the full recipe.) Fill the hole with assorted blue sprinkles and hard candy fish — it helps to mix them up in a bowl or jar before you pour them into the cake.

Frost the top of the second layer, taking care to avoid the candies in the center.

Place the third (uncut) 8-inch cake layer on top, and chill in the refrigerator until firm.

Trim the edges from the two 6-inch cake layers so that the center piece is a large triangle shape. Cut the triangle into two pieces down the center, and don't toss the rounded edge pieces — you need those too!

Carefully trim two edges from the chilled cake, so the cake becomes more oval-shaped. Don’t trim too much or you’ll expose the candy-filled center!

Pipe a line of frosting on one long side of top of the cake. Place the triangle pieces cut from the 6-inch cakes upright into the frosting, pointed ends to the sky.

Cover the cake with buttercream, rounding the very top of the cake to a point that resembles a shark's snout.

Frost the back half of the cake with blue-grey buttercream. Can you see our shark taking shape?

Pipe red buttercream into the front cavity and smooth it to cover. This creates the shark’s mouth.

Two of the rounded edge pieces from the 6-inch cakes become the shark’s flippers. Pipe a line of buttercream on both sides of the base of the cake. Place the rounded cake pieces on the frosting so they stick and cover with the blue-grey buttercream.

Attach two more of the rounded cake scraps to the back of the cake with frosting, trimming as needed to create a shark fin shape. Cover with the blue-grey buttercream.

Make a small divot on each side of the shark head with the back of a spoon, and pipe black frosting to fill each divot. While the frosting is still wet, add a single white confetti sprinkle to each eye.

Trim white candy melting wafers with a knife or kitchen-dedicated scissors to create pointed teeth.

Press the teeth into the buttercream around the mouth, creating a double row of shark teeth. Chomp!

Spread blue buttercream frosting around the base of the cake to make water around the shark.

Add a little white frosting to the blue frosting, and use an offset spatula to make wave patterns.

Fill two sections of a non-stick donut pan with melted white candy wafers. Chill until set, about 20 minutes.

Place the rings on either side of the shark, and turn them into life preservers by piping lines of leftover red frosting.