2D 11
M aw
by Kate Mulhauser · submitted Jul 24, 2012 · 2012 contest
1 / 19
Description
I've had this picture in my Threadless picture file for the past couple years as a potential cake entry, and decided that this year would be the year I tackle fondant. I bought the fondant pre-made. I figured that learning how to manipulate it would be hard enough without also learning how to make it myself.
Since one of my friends that would be eating the cake has a gluten allergy, I baked it using gluten-free cake mixes. I learned that vanilla gluten-free cakes are not as good-tasting as chocolate ones. I also learned that when a mix says to add melted butter to eggs and milk, to make sure the colder components at least warm up to room temperature. The milk didn't curdle, but somehow the butter/eggs/milk combination ended up chunky. For the sake of having the cat be a different color than the base of the cake, I decided to bake it anyway, and hope that the butter clumps (presumably) melt out in the baking process. They did, but it left the cake itself with an odd bubbly texture. The chocolate cake mix cooperated perfectly, and was delicious.
Once the cakes were cool, I leveled and stacked the two chocolate cakes and a friend frosted them with vanilla buttercream. I was trying to go for a sort of color inverse of the blanket over the cat in the design. While she was working on that, I cut the vanilla cake in half and stacked that on itself, and carved it into the cat form and frosted that in buttercream. When we were done, the cakes got covered and placed in the fridge to let the buttercream crumb coat solidify, and we went to go see a show.
The next day, I got home from work and did the final decorating, with some help from Mom. While she did another coating of buttercream on the chocolate sheet cake, I rolled out a piece of fondant to cover the top portion of the cake, and started mixing food coloring into leftover buttercream from last night's crumb coating for the orange cat. I carefully laid the fondant over the cake, smoothed it out, and added a little more buttercream on top of it where the cat would be placed, to help act as a glue. Mom and I spread buttercream over the cat, using vanilla where there would be fondant, and the colored frosting where the cat would be showing. Then, using 2 spatulas, I carefully placed the cat on the chocolate cake. I rolled out more fondant, hoping it would be large enough to cover. It mostly did. Only a small part on the side was missed, and Mom and I attempted to piece a little bit of fondant together to cover the last bit. I smoothed the large fondant down with the fondant-smoothing tool, and used by fingers to smooth around the cat. I also cut out a couple of fondant circles to use as the eyes.
The hardest part of this entire process was the stripes. I had purchased cookie decorating icing, thinking that I could simply drizzle the lines across the cake. The problem was that to use it, the directions said to put it in the microwave for a few seconds. This make the icing VERY runny, and made it puddle everywhere, and run into the orange frosting. I managed to clean most of it up, but it stained the fondant anywhere it touched. I ended up painting the face on using the end of a toothpick dipped in the icing puddles.
The black icing issues aside, I'm really happy with how my first attempt at fondant turned out. It was MUCH easier to work with than I had expected it to be - a lot like play-doh. Everyone always seems to say that it's difficult, but I think the hardest part was making sure that I rolled a large enough area out to cover it all in one piece.
Since one of my friends that would be eating the cake has a gluten allergy, I baked it using gluten-free cake mixes. I learned that vanilla gluten-free cakes are not as good-tasting as chocolate ones. I also learned that when a mix says to add melted butter to eggs and milk, to make sure the colder components at least warm up to room temperature. The milk didn't curdle, but somehow the butter/eggs/milk combination ended up chunky. For the sake of having the cat be a different color than the base of the cake, I decided to bake it anyway, and hope that the butter clumps (presumably) melt out in the baking process. They did, but it left the cake itself with an odd bubbly texture. The chocolate cake mix cooperated perfectly, and was delicious.
Once the cakes were cool, I leveled and stacked the two chocolate cakes and a friend frosted them with vanilla buttercream. I was trying to go for a sort of color inverse of the blanket over the cat in the design. While she was working on that, I cut the vanilla cake in half and stacked that on itself, and carved it into the cat form and frosted that in buttercream. When we were done, the cakes got covered and placed in the fridge to let the buttercream crumb coat solidify, and we went to go see a show.
The next day, I got home from work and did the final decorating, with some help from Mom. While she did another coating of buttercream on the chocolate sheet cake, I rolled out a piece of fondant to cover the top portion of the cake, and started mixing food coloring into leftover buttercream from last night's crumb coating for the orange cat. I carefully laid the fondant over the cake, smoothed it out, and added a little more buttercream on top of it where the cat would be placed, to help act as a glue. Mom and I spread buttercream over the cat, using vanilla where there would be fondant, and the colored frosting where the cat would be showing. Then, using 2 spatulas, I carefully placed the cat on the chocolate cake. I rolled out more fondant, hoping it would be large enough to cover. It mostly did. Only a small part on the side was missed, and Mom and I attempted to piece a little bit of fondant together to cover the last bit. I smoothed the large fondant down with the fondant-smoothing tool, and used by fingers to smooth around the cat. I also cut out a couple of fondant circles to use as the eyes.
The hardest part of this entire process was the stripes. I had purchased cookie decorating icing, thinking that I could simply drizzle the lines across the cake. The problem was that to use it, the directions said to put it in the microwave for a few seconds. This make the icing VERY runny, and made it puddle everywhere, and run into the orange frosting. I managed to clean most of it up, but it stained the fondant anywhere it touched. I ended up painting the face on using the end of a toothpick dipped in the icing puddles.
The black icing issues aside, I'm really happy with how my first attempt at fondant turned out. It was MUCH easier to work with than I had expected it to be - a lot like play-doh. Everyone always seems to say that it's difficult, but I think the hardest part was making sure that I rolled a large enough area out to cover it all in one piece.
