Before bailing on my assignment of a Soccer Ball Groom's Cake I decided to give it another go using fondant. I've taken two Wilton cake decorating courses and "Fondant and Gum Paste" is course 3. Even though I haven't taken Course 3 or ever used fondant, and the only thing I know about it is that it doesn't taste good, I've decided it's worth a shot to try and make another cake.
Before I tell you a little about my fondant experience I must share with you a buttercream frosting recipe I made. I've always made the Wilton Buttercream frosting and I've never liked it. The taste is not that great and it's made with Crisco (evil, evil Crisco). I've made it with vegan shortening but the result was a grittier frosting. Not ideal to make roses with.
After doing an internet search I stumbled upon "Quick Vanilla Buttercream Frosting" via the Foodnetwork.com, courtesy of Gale Gand. Recipe at the bottom of the blog.
The buttercream frosting has only 4 ingredients and it tastes so creamy and good. I wish it didn't have whipping cream, only for the fact that I can't leave it out at room temperature for very long.
Fondant...
After baking a devil's food chocolate cake and giving it a "quick vanilla buttercream frosting" crumb crust, I put the cake in the refrigerator for a couple of days. I didn't have time to get to decorate it sooner.
Now I've read that you can't refrigerate fondant. If you do, when you take it out and it comes up to room temperature, the fondant sweats. My dilemma is timing, for making a cake for the wedding and transporting it. If the cake can't sit out because of the icing and it can't be refrigerated because of the fondant, what do I do? I'll worry about that later. My current problem is getting the shapes on the cake.
I copied the template provided with the ball pan onto wax paper. I rolled out my white pre-made fondant to about 1/4" thick. Using a knife, I cut out a few of the shapes. I used a little frosting to adhere the shapes to the cake. I did this one or two shapes at a time. I should've cut and attached them all at the same time. Why, you ask? Because I would've seen my problem sooner. The problem: the template provided works for a cake made for the size of the pan. After putting frosting in between the two 1/2 spheres, the ball is larger and therefore the template is off. If I had been piping on icing, like I did with my first cake, I could've marked the cake templates with toothpicks (as the directions say) and made any needed adjustments. Since the instructions don't mention fondant, there are not any tips for using this product.
I was excited after I put on the first three or four shapes. I started painting the black shapes. Why did I paint them? I saw someone else had painted them and her cake looked awesome. You can tint fondant but I didn't want to deal with the kneading of the fondant. Who's got time for that during a trial run? Uh, a patient person who is doing things right the first time. Not me.
As I was attaching shapes to the cake, the shapes started slipping as the frosting began to warm up to room temperature. I was dealing with smudging the black gel colouring as well. If I wasn't such an impatient person I would've realized that painting all of the black shapes at the end would've prevented the smudging. Hind sight. With the template problem, I attempted to resolve it by shaping the fondant to the size I wanted. It worked, but started to look silly the more and more pieces were being manipulated.
So after realizing that I was working with a few different situations that were all above my skill level and patience level, I decided to use the rest of the frosting to try to make the grass. By now the frosting was quite thin. I should've thickened it up by adding more powered sugar, but I didn't think of that until just now. The grass was cool and would've looked better is it had been thicker.
In the end, I think I'm going to have to pass on making a Groom's Cake for my Sister-in-Law's wedding. I hope I can tell her before she reads this!
Best wishes to Ashlee and Ryan on 8.14.10!
