Here is my first ever fondant covered cake. Tada! This cake was made for a friend’s 50th birthday party which was themed Black, White and Bling. Although then end product was something that I was proud of, let me tell you there were some disasters along the way and this cake is far from perfect.
I liked how the butterflies turned out, this is also the first time I have used petal paste or gum paste as I’ve more commonly seen it called, I had to remake the butterflies out of petal paste at last minute because the ones I made out of fondant fell apart. Being the first time I had used this product I found it quite surprisingly hard to roll out at first but once it had warmed up a bit it was a little easier to work with. The best thing about the petal paste was that it was so forgiving once you had cut it out, it didn’t even threaten to crack when I was busily arranging my butterflies on their folded cardboard so they could dry with their wings up.
I also liked the effect of the draped fondant on the back of the cake. This drapery however served two other purposes. It helped support the butterfly’s wing as it hadn’t completely had time to dry when I was decorating and it covered the biggest disaster of the cake which was a section of fondant that was completely cracked and bubbled. It looked horrendous. It would appear that I left the cake in the fridge too long after coating it with some frosting to make sure it was all smooth and ready for the fondant (my UTube tutorials had said to do this) apparently you should chill it for about ten mins just long enough to get a bit of a crust on the butter frosting but I left it in for around 2 hours.... ooooops. The condensation between the cake and the fondant turned out to be quite troublesome but it did give me a reason to get more creative and try different decorating techniques.
All in all I think the end product was quite good and I will use petal paste again.
