I have severe fondant envy. Despite having no skills whatsoever in the kitchen, I spend hour upon hour watching the various cake shows on cable, from the extreme decorating challenges to Ace of Cakes to Amazing Wedding Cakes. And so I signed myself up for a “Fun with Fondant” class with dreams of one day being able to create a Taj Mahal (or some other noteworthy landmark) out of yellow cake, food coloring and fondant). Hoping for the best (i.e., a masterpiece worthy of Kerry Vincent’s lukewarm praise) but expecting the worst (i.e., a lopsided, wrinkled disaster that would cause me to incur Ms. Vincent’s withering gaze), I set about creating my work of art.
I started having trouble well before we even pulled out the dough-like icing for which the class was named. I just could not get my cake level. I shaved off more and more, only to end up with a severely sloping golden lump of a cake. The instructor – Judy, the owner of pieceocakenyc.com—tried to save me from myself, suggesting that I wait until the butter cream application to level it out. Little did she know how utterly butter cream-challenged I was. She soon learned, witnessing me lump and gouge my way through the second butter cream layer. She ultimately got me through (Judy’s great tip: dip your offset spatula into hot water intermittently when spreading the final coat of butter cream to make the butter cream layers smoother!) and I was ready to work on the kneading and rolling of the fondant. I kneaded and rolled and kneaded and rolled until I had the right size to life up and put on the cake. And so I did…only, much to my dismay I had worked the fondant so much that it looked as crepey as the skin of an octogenarian. I did my best to smooth it out with my hand but realized that I would really just need to work with it. So I did just that, using the lumps and bumps to create a “Winter Wonderland” cake, replete with snowdrifts and a red scarf-clad, carrot-nosed snowman.
And while it is far from those works of art featured on the Food Network or WeTV, I was happy with my first effort. I’m excited to see what great things will come out of my future mistakes.
It is so great to see you posting “check” on your lists! Your choice of a theme on this wonderful winter cake couldn’t be better! Bon!