Cheating at Cakes

I have many heroes these days... a world of people that I look up to from the ground as I kowtow before them. One of my favorites, right now, is Duff Goldman, baker, chef, proprietor of Charm City Cakes in Baltimore, and star of Ace of Cakes. I watch that show in awe, all the while scheming and planning how I can do that (so to speak). There are many things I am sure I would never be capable of doing, but fondant is something I'm starting to get. What I've discovered about fondant is that the scariest thing about it is the ignorance factor. Once you get over that and learn how to handle it, it's actually pretty easy. Buttercream, on the other hand is a skill I don't think I'll ever master. Beautiful roses, basket weaving and scroll work... not my piece of cake. But, fondant is like cheating, to me. Mostly because I can do it. At any rate, I'm learning... and in the interest of constant practice and skills-honing, I've now made my third fondant covered birthday cake... and here it is (and no, the smudgy red part is a doctored image thing, not a cake decorating catastrophe)...



My sweet middlest Beauty, the Princess Posh, will be five years old tomorrow! Sniff... She is having her party at a kid's gym~ hence the ball pit and the monkey bars. I wanted to put another kid on the cake, but I ran out of skin tone fondant. Sniff (again). I am mostly happy with the result... but it was a serious amount of work. Luckily, it's worth it for the fun factor. The not-fun part is the part where there is confectioner's sugar in every nook and cranny of the kitchen, ground into the kitchen floor and coating each alveolus in my lungs. For some reason, I can't control the sugar from going everywhere when I decorate cakes. However, I've lucked out in another way, in that my dear hubby gamely cleans up the mess when I'm done.

At any rate, it was a long, sweet, sticky morning, but the end result is something that I hope Posh will remember for a long time. Happy Birthday to my Princess!