Indira The Sweet

To fondant or not…. March 30, 2008

Here is the first version of the cake I made for a little girls first birthday. The final version had a smaller bow and more flowers. This bow just would not fit in the box!

When the birthday girls’ mom and I talked about me doing this cake last weekend, I suggested covering the cake with fondant ( a sugar dough that covers a lot of cakes you see at weddings and on TV! ) It creates a really smooth canvas for decorating but tastes very sweet. When trying to describes the taste, one might be reminded of marshmallows. Personally I like the way it can look, but I am not crazy about the taste. But a lot of cake designers like to use it. So thinking this is what she would probably want, I suggested it. Over the next few conversations we had about the cake, she out right told me she didn’t really like fondant, to which I replied. “oh, you can just eat around it, some people just peel it off.” For some reason I was not hearing her and still was insisting on using the fondant.

Then on Friday morning while preparing to cover the cake with a baby pink colored fondant, a light bulb went off in my head. She doesn’t like fondant, you don’t like fondant, why are you covering the cake?? I think a cake can look very elegant sans fondant, and I hoped she would too. So I made the decision to just use the fondant for accent decoration, and I am pretty happy with the results. I have to admit I learned a lot about cake decoration working with Anne at, Pink Cake Box, but what I need to remember is that I was making and decorating cakes before I went to culinary school and met Anne, to the delight of my friends and family. Fondant can elevate the design of a cake, but is not always necessary to make a beautiful and sophisticated cake. It is nice to be able to come to these revelations by myself sometimes, as opposed to having someone else point them out to me! -(Thank you Tanya!)

Happy Birthday Dylan! And thank you Meg, for your Birthday party brought Dylan’s mom and I together and created the possibility for this cake opportunity!