About two weeks ago I made a cake for a friends niece’s 15th birthday. The cake was decorated with white and dead daisies and a red ribbon made out fondant. The flowers on the cake topper were made out of fondant as well, accented with red tulle. The cake required 89 white daisies, 60 small red daisies, 20 flowers for the cake topper along with about 8 feet of fondant ribbon.

It took me about 5 hours to make the flowers and the cake topper. To bake, assemble and decorate the cake required another 4.5 hours.

Although fondant cakes look great, the assembling and decorations needs to be done the last minute as fondant can not be refrigerated.

During last three weeks I have attended a class at a friend’s candy and baking supply store. During the class we learned how to make Gum Paste flowers. I have attended Ann’s classes in the past. Working with gum paste is some what similar to working with fondant. However gum paste is more “forgiving”. Gum Paste once hardened, gum paste flowers can last for much longer time- for months if needed.
During the class we learned ho to make roses, cherry blossoms, baby’s breath, leafs, stephanotis, violets, forget me not flowers and daisies.

I was pleasantly surprised how realistic the gum paste flowers look. One of the trick I have learned is to make the petals for your flowers as thin as possible- it adds that extra realistic look.

Can’t wait for the follow up class where we will learn more advanced flowers. If you leave in New Jersey, consider attending one of the classes at Chocolate Belles in Brick. You won’t regret it!

Well, not so scary. I have baked this cake few days ago. It was a simple chocolate cake filled with the butter cream icing and decorated using fondant.

I got the idea for this cake by flipping though some old magazine. The original cake was actually three teared cake, where the top two tears where sitting on top of a spider and a third little spider was on the very top of the cake. Not only it was too complicated to make, I did not have enough people to eat even if I did make it.

It gave me an idea however for the cake pictured here. To make this cake I used 13 inch round cake pan, a 4 inch cup cake (for the body of the spider), plenty of fondant and thick pretzel sticks (to make spider’s legs).

The pumpkins around the base of the cake were made of fondant as well.

It is good idea to prepare your fondant ahead of time by dividing and coloring the fondant for the different parts of the cake. You can keep your fondant in a zip lock plastic container to prevent it from drying out.

If you have never worked with fondant before, you should remember not to store your cake in refrigerator as the moisture and fondant do not go well together. This is also why you will probably be much better off to fill your cake with butter cream icing instead of custard or whipped cream icing as both can go bad very quickly if not refrigerated. While butter cream can be stored at room temperature for 2 to 3 days.

If you need good book on fondant decorating techniques, I highly recommend The Cake Decorator’s Motif Bible: 150 Fabulous Fondant Designs with Easy-to-Follow Charts and Photographs