Birthday Cake with Fondant

Whatever you do, DON'T look at the back of this cake!


Aaaaaaahhhhhahahaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!


I told you not to do that.

*sigh* Let's add "find a how-to video on draping fondant on cakes" to my to-do list, shall we? They make it look so easy on TV. They simply cut away after the fondant is first draped over it, and don't come back until it's all neatly smoothed on. What happens in between? Seriously, there's bound to be extraneous fondant (I'm sure there's some geometry proof I could use as evidence, but I've forgotten all of that), so what do you do with it? How do you get it smoothed out? *FRUSTRATED*

One side turned out okay, but then I got to the part where there was...excess. And there was much cracking and other nonsense. Which I tried to cover up with spider webs. Using storebought (and obviously very runny) black and white (with sparkles!) frosting. The results, as you can see...not aesthetically pleasing.

At least the birthday girl was happy.


In other news, although it didn't look particularly delicious, the cake tasted yummy. Could have been yummier, but my life is crazy right now, so I had to make the cake almost a week ahead of time and freeze it. I think that caused it to not be as moist as it should have been. But the frosting--so easy. Easiest frosting I've ever made (food processor!).


And super super delicious. The fondant, too, was actually nice tasting (I used storebought--Duff Goldman's new brand). But I'm too frustrated with it to give it high praise.


TGIP Rating--Birthday Cake with Fondant--Meh. The cake and frosting I'll definitely use again. I would be perfectly happy to never use fondant again. Ever. I understand why people like it--the clean look for a decorating base. But I'm far from being a professional baker/decorator, so the look of something is less important to me than the taste. Now, to win my children over to my point of view.


Next up: Duff (twice in one post!) talked in an episode of The Best Thing I Ever Ate about a pie from the Dangerously Delicious bakery in Baltimore called the Baltimore Bomb Pie. They use crumbled Berger cookies and a chess pie filling. I'm making my own version and calling it the Salt Lake Bomb Pie. I'll be using black and white cookies from my favorite Salt Lake bakery, Les Madeleines. I think that's about as close as I can come--a cakey cookie with a fudgy frosting. But, really, it's all about the fact that I'm craving pie.