I like making cakes. In fact, I always have the ingredients on hand so that if the fancy takes me, I can make several different cakes at any time. So when my mother asked me to make her a birthday cake this year, I thought to myself, “No sweat!”
But I wanted to do something special for my mom. I thought about making pretty decorations from icing; flowers and borders and such. Then I saw this cake and thought to myself, “My mom would LOVE this.” That cake is so darned cute and clean that I simply had to try to make it. It has my mother’s two favorite colors and it’s too adorable for words. The only problem was that I had never worked with fondant before and there was simply no way that I could replicate this work with icing.
Thank goodness for the internet.
There are many many many articles and videos detailing how to smooth fondant over a cake. There are several how-to’s for making fondant roses. Fondant bows have their own articles as well. I went into this endeavor feeling well-educated and quite confident. If the project went to hell, I could always just ice it and present my mother with a plain white cake.
I just made a simple two-layered 9-inch round white cake. I made simple white icing to go in between the layers and to go over the cake before the fondant went on. For the fondant, I simply bought plain white fondant at my local craft store (I bought way too much expecting a million and a half mistakes on my part). Following the internet’s infinite wisdom, I also purchased gel food coloring so that I could color the fondant.
The coloring and kneading of fondant is a giant pain in the ass. There, I said it. It takes a LOT of work to get out all of the swirls of color and get a uniform color in the fondant. There is a lot of kneading and back work. Fondant (at least the stuff I bought) is a lot more firm and dense than I had anticipated. It took a very long time to simply color the fondant.
Fondant also needs to be kept moist. I worked with small amounts at a time and kept the rest rolled in a ball under a wet paper towel. It worked well for me.
Another surprise I got was that you do not use powdered sugar to keep the fondant from sticking while you work with it. It was an assumption, really, but I was surprised to learn that the best powder to use is actually cornstarch. A little cornstarch goes a long way and it worked great with keeping the fondant from sticking.
Mostly, making a fondant cake is just a lot of time and work on your part. My first try came out looking rather nice, but a pro could point out my sloppiness and many mistakes quite easily. Fondant cakes will only be a very special occasion on my part. The making of this cake from the baking of the cake to photographing of the finished product took me 12 hours. That DOES include cooling down time, but it’s still a lengthy process. It may also be due to the fact that this was my first time and I wasn’t working very fast.
At any rate, here is the finished cake. Not bad for a first-timer but still riddled with mistakes.
I wasn’t entirely pleased with how the colors came out. I was looking for more cool and muted colors and I ended up with ultra loud neon colors. My own fault, of course.
I like the bow. Speaking as someone who tries to avoid this word, I do think the bow is CUTE.
My roses are a little blumpy and not quite delicate. They look like flowers, though, so it is a success in my book.
Now people, when I place the phrase “If I can do it, anybody can do it” before you, I mean it. I am not a particularly talented person nor am I the most patient person. This takes a lot of time and work and that’s about all. If you can devote a lot of time both reading up on the how-to’s of fondant and the decorating itself, then you can do it.
I will warn you though, it tastes like crap.
Enjoy! Haha!
