Fun with Fondant

Two weeks ago, my friend Jennifer and I threw a baby shower for our good friend Brandie.  I really wanted to make a fondant-covered cake for the shower, but since neither Jennifer nor I had ever covered a cake in fondant, we thought it would be a good idea to do a test run a few weeks out.  Although I have used store-bought fondant in the past for decoration, we wanted to try to make our own marshmallow fondant from scratch to avoid some of the unsavory ingredients lurking in the store-bought variety since we were covering the whole cake with it.  Jennifer found a pretty simple recipe on the Wilton website.  Basically all you need to do is melt the marshmallows with a little bit of water, mix in confectioners sugar and then knead the mixture until it becomes a dough-like consistency.  It was a bit of a messy process, but the result was fabulous!  Once you have the right consistency, roll out the fondant to a scant 1/4" thick and lay it over the cake.  We dyed some of the left over fondant pink and purple and used the backs of different sized piping tips to cut out circles.  Then we topped it all off with a pink bow and purple ribbon.

Not bad for our first try...and we got it done pretty quickly considering we had three unruly children tearing around the house while we were working.  Okay, two unruly children.  Jennifer's daughter Taylor is always very good.

Did I mention it was delicious?  Chocolate cake made by me, vanilla cream cheese frosting made by Jennifer and the marshmallow fondant on top, which was incredibly tasty.  Much tastier than the store-bought variety and much cheaper!

Two weeks later it was time for the real deal.  Fortunately, I had enough fondant left over to cover the 6" layer cake for Brandie's shower.  Apparently marshmallow fondant can keep for up to two months in an airtight container!  I used store-bought fondant to make my first ever fondant loop bow.  It was actually much easier than I had anticipated (cakeboss.com has a great tutorial).  After covering the cake, I used the left over fondant dyed blue and brown to make the dots.

The cake is my go-to vanilla buttermilk cake from smittenkitchen.com with lemon curd filling and raspberry buttercream frosting. 

I made vanilla cupcakes with vanilla cream cheese frosting and Jennifer made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese frosting as accompaniments to the cake.  I was very pleased with the finished product.  I must say though, it wouldn't have been possible without Martha Stewart and her fabulous selection of housewares at Macy's.  I had been looking high and low for some white cake stands with clean lines and she had exactly what I was looking for. Is there anything that woman can't do? I love you Martha!