Happy Birthday to me...

My birthday was yesterday and because I am going to be attending culinary school in the fall, I thought I should try to work with fondant again. I figured there is no better time to practice than for my own birthday, because if it didn't turn out, then the only person that would be let down would be me (or maybe my boyfriend because he paid for the supplies/ingredients since he wanted to buy me a cake. But I don't really think he would care either way).

I was a little bit nervous to attempt this cake, since my first fondant cake took me for-e-ver (picturing Smalls from The Sandlot), and cost me lots of tears and heartache. But I thought it turned out ok.

Problems I had:

• Trouble covering the cake: My boyfriend helped me lay the fondant on the cake since I didn't have a large rolling pin (oh yeah, that was fun...I didn't have my large fondant rolling pin with me and so I had to use my mini one to roll out my fondant. You know the one you use to roll out tiny bits of fondant for flowers and whatnot. *sigh*) and as we're laying it on top he asks me how is the cake going to be smooth with no creases. Good question I told him. I flashed back to my Wilton fondant class to the moment where I was covering my cake with fondant....oh that's right, I didn't cover my cake with fondant, the instructor pretty much did it for me. Great. Now I remembered she kind of pulled on the fondant and it just magically smoothed out and the creases ended up below the cake and I cut them off. So I tried that...and instead of magically smoothing out, mine stretched...and tore. *heavy sigh* Awesome. At least I was adding circles to the cake so I could cover the tears. I managed to get all of the creases out except for the one in the back of the cake....hence no pictures of the back of the cake. Haha. :o) Solved that problem! But seriously, I don't even remember how I did that on my first cake which was quite curvy.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make it so there are no creases?

• Air pockets underneath the fondant: I tried poking a hole but that didn't really work. I had way too much air underneath there.

• Droopy fondant: The numbers are droopy and I know it's because they didn't get to dry long enough. So...
How long do they really need to dry before they will stand up straight?
And once they can stand up straight, how do you secure them on the top of the cake?

In the end, I was a little bummed but I didn't cry about it, so I think it was successful. :o)
However, any suggestions or advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

-amanda

Cakes!

My first post! I thought I would share some old things that I have created. So here are a few cakes that I have made...

Rainbow Sherbet Cake - A nice light summery dessert made with rainbow sherbet, angel food cake and cool whip. The recipe that I used can be found here: Rainbow Sherbet Cake


This cake was made using the Wilton Little Graduate Pan.


And my favorite cake that I have made so far is this snowboard cake made out of fondant. My very first fondant cake (besides the one from the Michael's class that the instructor pretty much did for me. lol.)

So that's all for now, I plan to post the cookies that I have done next. And then we can get on to the new stuff. I have lots of baking projects I want to do soon...so check back! :)

-amanda