December 1, 2010

The Cake(s)

Remember how I promised a blog on the fondant cake that I made? Well, if you didn't remember, that's okay, because I am going to blog about it now anyway. Trevor said he wanted a farm cake, I found one that was covered in fondant and super cute (and looked a little hard to do)...then he deiced he wanted a batman cake, too. No problem, this way I could do the easier batman cake for his actual birthday to practice the fondant before I did the farm one for his party. To start with I made the cake two days before his birthday, it is an Oreo pound cake with buttercream frosting (I added some crushed oreo to the buttercream frosting that went in between the layers). I made a sheet cake, 11X19. and then once it was cooled, cut it in half, with the oreo buttercream frosting in between the layers. Then I cut it into an oval.
 Right out of the oven, you know pound cake is done when it springs back when touched.
 Inverted and cooling.
 Cut into an oval and coated with buttercream (don't coat the outside of the cake until right before you are going to put the fondant on, this acts as your "glue"), Ted and the boys (and myself, yes I ODed) enjoyed eating the scraps. I just cracked the oreos into 4 pieces for the cake so that there would be big chunks of oreo.
Trevor after helping make the cake, black was not a good color to wear!

The following day I made the fondant and decorated the cake. The day started by getting Landon to school, coming home and starting the fondant, my mom calls and wants me to come over, I realize I don't have enough powdered sugar but figure I can borrow some from Mom. So, I leave my messy kitchen (fondant is in my mixer still) to have lunch with my mom, she does have powdered sugar, get back home and finish the fondant. Finally time to roll it out, first attempt, it doesn't roll out at all. Add more powdered sugar. Second attempt, it rolls out but still is sticky and will not come up from the table. Third attempt, same as second attempt, again added more powdered sugar. Getting frustrated. I decided to try to chill it like I do cookie dough before I roll it out, so into the freezer it went for about 5 minutes, and then the black went into the fridge so it didn't get too cold or freeze on me. This time instead of powdered sugar, I dusted everything with cornstarch. Forth attempt, it rolled out and it coming off the table. I start rolling onto my rolling pin to get it onto the cake and it sticks and starts to tear. Start over, more cornstarch, this time it rolls out and back onto my rolling pin perfect and rolls out onto the cake like I had envisioned it would 4 attempts ago. From here it was easy, I just used my hands to smooth it on and then used a pizza cutter to cut off the extra around the edge. Yellow was now on, time to make the bat. I found a picture online and then traced it, then cut it out. Once my black fondant was rolled out, I put the bat on it and cut around it. Then with a little buttercream to make it stick, onto the cake it went. Last, I rolled little balls of the extra yellow for the HAPPY BIRTHDAY candles to go into and put them around the bottom of the cake. It was a fun experience and I had planned to make another one, but I just did not have it in my to have my kitchen a complete disaster zone again before his party. Instead, I had just gotten a Southern Living magazine and made one of the cake recipes out of it. It turned out AMAZING. It was extremely rich, but so worth every bit!




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