SO, being the *amazing* daughter I am, I decided I wanted to make my mum a really fancy cake for mother’s day. This was the first 3D cake I have ever made and the first cake I have ever used fondant icing with…so it was a pretty big challenge.
I’m not going to bore you with a lengthy step by step but instead, I’m going to highlight a few fundamental errors I made (hurrah!)…
1. I stupidly (or really cleverly?) chose a ‘rich chocolate cake mix’ which was REALLY tasty but at the same time so so rich – like make-your-face-sweat rich.
2. The was so heavy…the density of the cake was unbelievable and it was literally like a brick making it difficult to move around/eat.
3. I got over excited and crumb coated it before I should have. In hindsight I should have turned it upside down (in a bowl) and crumb coated it so I could then put the fondant icing on properly. Because I did not do that, I had to kind of drape the fondant around the edge, leaving it all wrinkly and gathered and stuff. Definitely not a professional look.
4. I didn’t have enough fondant icing – I thought 250g would be enough, but it was not. Too thin = very wrinkly.
See below for a clever little photo montage of each stage…
After I had assembled my cake, I realised I had I ran out of icing sugar (SO ANNOYING WHEN THIS HAPPENS) so my cream cheese frosting was slightly runnier than it should have been – well I think that’s why it was runny.
Also N.B. cake and fridges don’t really go well together (cue mega crumbles), so I won’t be using a cream cheese frosting again as I like to keep this in the fridge, and with it being such a MASSIVE cake it’s hard to eat in one day.
Apart from all of the abouve…I was VERY pleased/proud for my first attempt at a ‘proper’ cake.
I am going to re-make this cake this weekend but instead will make a madeira cake and a fresh strawberry buttercream. Should be much lighter and yummier!
I am happy to share my recipes if anyone wants them 🙂
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I came down to comment and saw what Andre said–could not say it better myself. I haven’t really done a ton of practice with (giant) cake baking and decorating, but this has inspired me!
It was a big challenge! I urge you to go for it though, it was very satisfying to see it actually standing like a flower pot and not a crumbling mess haha. I re-made it last weekend so will be posting about that also 🙂
That is one hell of a cake
Thanks sterling!