Decorating a cake with fondant 101

amother

Wed, Jul 14 2021, 10:50 am

Help! I gotta bake and decorate a cake with fondant today. I am a complete newbie. I have ready made fondant and some tools. Need the easiest cake to bake (I'm not sure if Dunkin Hines would work?).

Please provide me with the cheat sheet version of how to do this.

For example, easy recipe for an appropriate vanilla cake.
How to stick the fondant to the cake? Can I use store-bought frosting?
Etc.

Thank you in advance!

Will be covering the cake completely with fondant, then cutting out shapes. Thank you!

amother

Milk

Wed, Jul 14 2021, 12:05 pm

I would recommend actually baking a cake from scratch-not Duncan Hines. Duncan Hines cakes are very soft and fluffy and that leads to more crumbs, the cake possibly crumbling/breaking.... its basically more delicate. You want a sturdier cake.

This is a recipe I have made- its nice cuz it doesn't have margarine:
https://www.ricardocuisine.com.....-best

You can definitely use a jar/container of store bought frosting. You spread that over the cake as smoothly as you can. I would refrigerate it for a few hours so the frosting dries and hardens a little and if you mess up the fondant, you can pick it up and fix/adjust it as needed without getting tons of frosting all over the place and making a big mess.

A trick for smoothing it out: use a paper towel to smooth out sections by gently rubbing with your hand and then pulling the paper towel off.. it shouldn't stick to the frosting once it has dried down a little.

Roll out the fondant and gently stretch it over the cake, smoothing it in the sides as you go. Remember if you have some rips or marks, you can strategically cover them with whatever extra decorations you will be adding on top.

amother

Milk

Wed, Jul 14 2021, 2:28 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Thank you so much! Cake is in the oven. Looked like an involved recipe with the specific instructions but I'm excited. Now for the fun part...

Wait for it to completely cool before icing it otherwise the icing melts. Or put it in the freezer for a bit

cbsp

Wed, Jul 14 2021, 4:15 pm

amother [ Milk ] wrote:

This is a recipe I have made- its nice cuz it doesn't have margarine:
https://www.ricardocuisine.com.....-best

A bit off topic, but since you mentioned it I figure I'd ask here.

Many of the comments for this cake recipe are negative (more so than usual). I assume since you're recommending it that wasn't your experience, but do you know what you're doing successfully?

Also, (and I guess ironically so given your amother color) have you ever substituted out the milk?

amother

Milk

Wed, Jul 14 2021, 4:36 pm

cbsp wrote:

I have made this cake several times- it's just a basic vanilla cake. I never had it come out bad. I sub milk for either almond milk or water. I don't find it matters so much in the outcome.