Friday, December 5, 2014

Bow ties are cool!


My Big and Baby pig are big fans of Dr Who. And they both think bow ties are cool! ^^

Hence my first attempt at fondant.. and a Dr Who bow tie cake for Baby pig's 13th birthday party. Ok, I can hear you. Don't laugh too hard, and cut me some slack. ^^

I just want to say that the shiny, glossy, sticky, wet look in the picture above, is really all due to the fondant sweating.. because of temperature change from cold to hot, humid (even with the air-con switched on! maybe not cold enough???). And remember, covering a COLD cake with room-temp fondant is also a NO-NO! Fondants are really temperamental! No sudden temperature change, please.. or you'll have sweating, sticky fondants! I learned this the hard way. Youtube didn't quite have this information, and the post on handling fondants in humid weather doesn't sink in till you experience it for yourself! ^^||

this is the fondant cake I was trying to copy.. and if mine didn't sweat, it would have been.. close, haha ^^

You know, I was feeling pretty upbeat when I had the white shirt collar, bow tie, jacket lapels fondant cut out. I had assembled them on a piece of parchment paper and they looked so perfect ^^.. exactly how I wanted them to be.. nice, dry and neat (!!!). However, the minute I covered the cold cake (red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting) with fondant (white shirt and dark grey jacket), it started to sweat and turned wet and sticky! Holy moly, yikes! ^^|| ^^|| ^^||

Of course, I've read that the fondant sweating will dry out eventually if you leave it at room temperature. But I could't do that! My cream cheese frosting could melt! What a Catch 22 situation, right? ^^||

Well, I'm trying not to be too harsh on myself. It's a pretty decent 1st attempt for someone who has never touched/used fondants.. and depended on youtube videos, some how-to fondant posts and one write up on handling fondants in humid weather by faitmaisonblog (too bad she didn't mention about fondant on cold cakes ^^||). Maybe I shouldn't be such a cheapo and maybe attend some classes.. nawwwwwhhh, I'm not doing this again for a long, long, long time!

Despite how it looks, the kids loved the fondant (eeeks!) and the red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. No pics of the cake I'm afraid, but I'm definitely going to make this red velvet recipe again.. it uses butter ~ my kind of cake ^^


Anyways, take away the shine and gloss, it's pretty ok. ^^ More importantly, Baby pig was very happy with his surprise cake! And I got 2 big hugs from him! And that's all that really matters! ^^ ^^ ^^


2 comments:

Mel said...

Salute...salute...salute to you. It looks near to so perfect for a first time playing with fondant. I would give you a big bear hug too not to say when piggy receiving this cake.

When watching at youtube making fondant, it do sound like easy but never knew it was doing it in a cooler weather/environment. Really need blast the air con.

Well, well, well, I can say is Im proud to see this cake too. It look really really good to me. I thought after playing with this fondant, you might have got addicted to try out another fondant cake or go for it to take lesson..... really not in any near future to put your hands on fondant again? If someone is doing together with you, you might say yes lor.... wink...wink....wink..

pudgy butterfly said...

Thanks for the encouragement, mel! I have to admit, it was quite fun to play with fondant ^^ But the effort spent on trying to figure out how to build the cake is killing!!! Of course, the 'never ever touched a fondant' and trying to make a fondant cake is NOT exactly a wise decision.. and I am no seamstress either! So really had to crack the brain to construct the "outfit".

I can be tempted to make it again, I guess.. ^^ but the cake must not have frosting ie. fruitcake, butter cake layered with buttercream in between but not on top if cake.. cakes that can be left at room temp. This way, fondant won't weep/sweat. ^^