And eventually I started getting more and more creative. I started collecting things for decorating. Piping tips; spatulas; cake plates... I got tired of freehanding my writing so I found stencils. A cake leveler. Etc and so on.
Last year I decided to make Madison's second birthday cake in the shape of a 2. I was extremely pleased with myself.
The inside of the cake was bright green as well. I guess I impressed my niece Deborah because it wasn't long after Madison's birthday that she told me that she wanted a rainbow cake. Her birthday is in June. :P
And so my wheels started turning. And I did some Googling on rainbow cakes. And I thought about making her a seven layer cake with white frosting so she'd be all WOW! when she cut into it and each layer was a different color of the rainbow. But then I started wondering about fondant. And I asked around and found out that making your own fondant is remarkably easy. (No, really. As in melt a bag of mini marshmallow in the microwave for about a minute and a half with two tablespoons of water. Stir every 30 seconds to ensure even meltage. Coat a wooden spoon in Crisco. Once melted, add in about a pound of powdered sugar and stir until a ball forms. Coat hands thoroughly in Crisco. Knead until fondant is the consistency of dough. Refridgerate and use the next day. SO easy.) So, I figured what the hell and played with it.
And I had a blast. And I think my practice cakes turned out pretty darn good! My first practice cake was HUGE. Two tiered and everything! I attempted to "marble" all of the colored fondant together but didn't like the effect too much so I won't be doing that on the final cake.
I think I want to add some pearl dust to the final product, though, to make the fondant shiny. At least the colored decor. So here is my second practice cake. I made the two layers with different recipes. The top layer is the winner (finer texture/crumb; tastier; more moist). I am thinking about trying out a better buttercream icing recipe. The one I've been using is more of a "decorating" icing recipe and it's really overly sweet (and kinda greasy since Crisco is involved).
I would say, overall, it took me about five hours (collectively) to do everything. It's pretty labor intensive to make a rainbow cake (all the mixing involved you know). Plus I only have ONE ten inch pan (MUST remedy that!) so I had to bake the cakes separately. I baked the cakes the night before and crumb coated them with buttercream and allowed them to chill over night. Then I applied another coat of buttercream before applying my fondant. My fondant work isn't perfect but pretty damn good for an amateur (and only my second try)!
I can't wait to do it again. :)
