new(ish) hobby...

I've been baking for years.  It's only been recently that I started really getting into decorating my baked goods.  Specifically cakes.  I guess I started with my sister's baby shower cake in 2007.



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.  :)