Wilton Course 3 - Fondant and Tiered Cakes

I'm a glutton for punishment. This fact is becoming very very clear. I decided to take Wilton's Course 3, Fondant and Tiered Cakes even though I have a fear of fondant. What does it taste like? Is it hard to work with? What about coloring it? I don't have a sheeter so how hard is it to roll? Lots and lots of questions. But I hiked up my big girl pants and dove in. It was in the second class that fondant really came into play. We played with it a little in the first class, but applying it to an actual cake happened in the second.

So let's start with the cake. You may remember from such blogs as this one and this one, how much I detest buttercream icing. This class uses buttercream and royal icing, but in very limited quantities. So let's start first with the cake. Class two is the package cake, meaning it looks like a package, so the cake was to be square. Knowing this probably will not end up being edible, I used a box cake mix and baked it in an 8 inch square pan. Check out the bump on this bad boy!



This cake had to be evened out so I used my handy dandy cake leveler, which by the way, is my fave tool ever. It's the coolest thing. It looks like this. And after leveling it, this is how the cake looked:


Then I put it on the cake board upside down so the flat side was up. Then it had to be iced with the vile buttercream. This step is important because it keeps the fondant in place. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it should be smooth.



So far, so good. From there I took the cake to class to finish up the decorations. But first, we got to make fondant roses. There are a lot of steps and they are time consuming, but I like them a lot better than vile buttercream roses. One of the reasons being that the center can be a jellybean! Believe me, when you realize you have to roll out the fondant, cut it, ruffle it, cup it, and fold it all up into a rose, the fact that you don't have to make the center too is a very welcome time saver! Here is my very first fondant rosebud.


So, now we're getting to the good stuff. Time to decorate our cake. We started by rolling out the fondant. It's like rolling out dough, and then you roll the fondant around the rolling pin like you would if you were making a pie.



Then drape it over the cake, and start smoothing it down!



My fondant might look like it's a little thick, but it actually wasn't. And it smoothed over the cake just beautifully. My fondant fears were so far proving to be unfounded. It's actually almost easier than vile buttercream!

Once the cake is covered and smoothed, I trimmed off the excess and started to build my decorations on it. I had strips of pink fondant that would look like a ribbon and bow, plus some pink spirals and some white flower cut outs. To get the fondant to stick to each other, we brushed each piece with clear vanilla extract.


And here it all is, put together. Hey not too bad for my first try huh?? (humor me ok?)



There are some errors, sure. And the edges could use a border. But I'm actually pretty pleased with this result. What I'm not pleased about is this weeks class. It's daunting, to say the least. Before class I will need to make about 30 fondant roses and some fondant leaves, two cakes (iced and covered with fondant), dowels placed in cakes. And then in class we will put it all together and tier them. I'd be totally lying if I didn't say I was ascared! Yikes!