Lesson learned

So, I discovered this weekend that chocolate fondant and I are not friends. I've deleted it's number from my cell phone. I attempted to make a cake for a family celebration for the birthdays of Kevin's father and sister. Since I had already made Andrea a super girly cake, I decided to butch it up a little and use "boy" colors, which I apparently believe to be brown. So I landed on chocolate fondant and it was shockingly harder to work with than the vanilla that I had triumphed over last week. It's much stiffer and shows every little mistake. It's also very difficult to remove all the confectioner's sugar that one employs while rolling it out. I guess one successful go round does not a cake genius make.

Ok, so here's the long shot of the cake. See all the bumps and cracks and nonsense? Some of those bumps are problems with the fondant and some are because I had trouble making sure that all four layers were even, but rest assured, they are all problems. No joke, I almost threw it away and bought a grocery store cake.

Here's another shot. All those lines that look like paintbrush lines are me attempting to wipe all the confectioners sugar off the cake. Poor choice. Apparently when you put water on chocolate fondant, it makes it shiny. Forever. Next time, I will wait til I'm done and take a small dry brush to the whole cake and brush off any excess. (Oh, and because I know you are all simply DYING to know, that ceramic cupcake in the background holds my splenda packets. And no, I know, I couldn't be any cuter.)

Oh yeah, I covered each dot with pearlescent luster dust, because seriously, those of you who know Marc Crowley know that he just SCREAMS sparkle.

All in all, it was a good learning experience with an only ok end result. The best part, Kevin's aunt has asked me to make a cake for a baby shower she is throwing. A real cake, for, like, real people! I guess I have to figure out how to actually make a presentable cake for 20 hungry guests and one very pregnant woman. At least if it comes out terribly I'll be nowhere nearby when she's holding that knife...I'll be testing a few ideas in the next weeks so keep checking!