ADVENTURES IN FONDANT: A Beginner's Journey

01/05/2014

I love to bake, but I am no Susie Homemaker. Regardless, I like to try. Make the attempt. Too bad pinterest has seriously shot down my confidence. When I didn’t have to SEE what the world’s elite bakers were capable of, I thought I was pretty good. Now, not so much.
Take for example this:
For my sister’s birthday, my sister-in-law and I decided we would make this Halloween Pumpkin cake. Looked easy enough. Bundt cake with carrot cake recipe. Two bundt cakes one side facing down, and one, right side up. Stick them together. Smoother with orange icing. Put a brown or green ice cream cone on top and VOILA! Beautiful cake!
You know where this is going.
For many reasons, my final photo never looks as good as the fabulous ones on the internet. My baking can always be identified as the ‘home made’ kind! Tastes delicious, but never looks like it’s one of the pros. I’ve resigned myself to accept it, taking solace in the fact, it’s still edible and my husband likes it. Good enough for me. But it still doesn’t stop me from trying.
Anyways, this is how the ‘easy’ Halloween pumpkin cake turned out. Tada! The final product.
I could barely contain my laughter, as we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ while bringing in the warped pumpkin cake. She was utterly confused whether or not this was a gag cake or for real. But she bravely put on a good face and swore the sloppy appearance of the cake wasn’t as bad as we thought it was. This picture doesn’t do it justice. The entire back side of the pumpkin was patched together with orange icing. More landslide, than pumpkin side. We made up for it the next day with a chocolate sheet cake (graveyard) and lots of candy. So all was not lost.
Fast forward to today. My daughter is turning one in just over a week, and I decided I’d better do a test run of her cake. After all, these photos go into the ‘major milestone’ category, and I don’t want her to think I was slacking off on the job.
So my sister-in-law decided we’d go with something easy. The theme is pink ladybugs … so we settled on something like this …
Go big or go home, right?!
Instead of writing about how it went, I’ve decided to SHOW you how it went with a series of pictures. Because let’s be honest. If you’ve read this far, I know you’re waiting for it. The epic fail. Funny enough, my sister-in-law and I were both expecting it too. So here’s how it went …

Buttercream icing goes directly ON TOP of the cake BEFORE the fondant. I know. Complicated!

Starting to look like something …

QUALITY CONTROL: We were interrupted by the person who matters the most … My daughter! She was consumed by ripping off the eyeballs and trying to eat them. To me, that’s success!!!

And this was as far as we got for today. It’s somewhat smooth. Looks like fondant. And tastes delicious.Not bad I would say. Not bad.
Next up, working with food colouring, getting different size cake pans and finding a pink ladybug cake topper (yes we may cheat a little. Surprise, surprise). Doesn’t look anything like the planned photo above – but we’re close. Stay tuned for the final product in less than two weeks!
Bottom line … it tastes good. And right in this moment, that’s good enough for me.

Here is the recipe we used for our marshmallow fondant. Written by a lovely lady, Peggy Weaver. We decided (my sister-in-law and I) that if we can’t trust a sweet looking lady like Peggy, then who can we trust?!
http://whatscookingamerica.net/PegW/Fondant.htm
And here is the buttercream recipe we used: