Happy (early) birthday to me

Since my birthday is this week, today I made my first fondant covered cake. I have had visions of decorating cakes before (maybe I've been watching too much TLC) but I NO longer have any desire to bake or decorate cakes. This project took me about 4 hours. (I even cheated by using a box cake mix and pre-made icing!!)


I started out with my cake mix (strawberry because I wanted the inside to be pink.)

I greased and floured the pans and then baked it according to the directions. They looked great when they came out of the oven. I set them aside to cool while I worked on the fondant.

For my first try I wanted to make things as easy as possible. I planned to buy a tub of pre-made fondant from the store...until I found out it cost $20. Instead I bought a bottle of glycerin for $2.60 (which has enough to make several batches) and used the fondant recipe on this page. (p.s. this is NOT marshmallow fondant and it tastes amazing. you can substitute any flavor you want for the almond flavor.) It was pretty easy to make. I colored it a pale aqua. I do wish I had gone a bit darker but this is OK I guess. I almost forgot to save a little out to color pink for the flowers. I managed to save a bit just in time before I got the blue all mixed in. (There are also directions for coloring the fondant on her site, or you can click here.) 

After the cake had cooled the amount of time recommended I tried to flip the pans over and remove the cakes but nothing happened. I cut around the edges with a knife. Still nothing! I had my husband come bang on the bottom of one pan and HALF the cake fell out. He managed to get the other half out in one piece so the bottom layer of my cake is broken :( On the other pan he used a spatula and loosened up the other layer and got that one out intact. 


I used my new Wilton cake leveler and cut the raised part off both layers (I don't think I took enough off as I found out when I tried to stack them...oops) frosted in between and then dirty iced them all around. 

Then I tried to roll out my fondant. This is when I started sweating. Literally! I had it all rolled out nice and thin but it was glued to the mat. I tried rolling it out on wax paper with some powdered sugar. Same thing. I tried again on the counter. I used the rest of my powdered sugar. I was able to roll it up on the rolling pin this time and transfer it to the cake (barely.)

(see how it was sticking?) 

 I covered the cake but ended up with a wrinkle that I couldn't figure out how to smooth out. I ended up covering it with the flowers. The flowers would have been really easy if the fondant hadn't been sticking to the surface so badly. I cut them out with a tiny cookie cutter & shaped them by hand. I used the end of a paint brush to push in the middles. I painted a tiny bit of water on the back and stuck it to the cake. Then I put some candy beads in the center of each flower. I wanted to use some pearl colored beads I had seen but this worked out alright. 
Oh yeah, and there are the same number of flowers as the age I'm going to be this year! Figure that one out... 

 I would say it's OK for my first attempt but I think this may be a first and last attempt. (Unless someone can teach me the trick to getting it to stop sticking!!!) Little h will have to work on me pretty hard if she wants me to make her birthday cake this year! 

I kinda can't wait to cut it open so you can see the pink inside!! 

Happy (early) Birthday to Me!!