So I'm a newbie decorator and I just did a two layer Curious George cake for my nephew's second birthday. The cake was a HIT and everyone loved it. Another person at the party was my husband's great aunt Dorothy. She's turning 92 in September and I guess there's going to be a party for her. If they don't throw her a party for turning 92, I will!!!!

So anyways, she really liked my cake and wants me to do her birthday cake. I'm feeling adventurous and would like to do a pillow cake. I'm thinking instead of a tiara though, I'm going to put a shoe on top. Not because her name is Dorothy, but because she really likes shoes. She's always commenting on my shoes and once used an old pair of hers for a table centerpiece! It looked really cool!

So my question is this, does anyone have any advice for me??? This would be my first time with carving cake and fondant. I'm thinking about just getting some precolored/prerolled stuff to help me out, seeing as how it's my first time working with it. And since I'm looking for the precolored stuff, does the lavender fondant fade just like lavender frosting does? If it does, I think I might just go with pink or something. I work at a Sam's Club right now, should I take advantage of that and buy up some cakes and frosting, or does anyone have any easy, good recipes? I live in an apartment that has a TEENY kitchen. I'm not kidding, this thing is looks like it should be in a dollhouse.

So please, all you artists out there, bestow your knowledge and experience on me!!!!!

Everything you ever wanted to know about making your 1st tiered cake:
(Has recipes for cake and frosting and so much more.)

http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopicp-5958955-.html

Updated link to Wilton's cake making & decorating help:

http://www.wilton.com/cakes/

Illustrated guide to cutting neat slices of tiered cake by indydebi:

http://cateritsimple.com/_wsn/page10.html

HTH

I would definately buy pre-made fondant but NOT WILTON - it tastes horrible. Global Sugar Art has Satin Ice on sale right now for 25% off and everyone says it's great to work with and tastes good. I use choco-o-pan and love it but it is harder to work with. I would make the shoe out of gumpaste or 50/50 fondant/gumpaste so it dries hard. I can't help you with the fading of colors as I've never had any fade (I color my own) but I haven't ever used lavendar.
A lot of people buy Sam's icing and love it so if you like working with it I'd go for that.

welcome to the CC.
I used the pillow cake tutorial on this site. It is very easy to follow. And the CC has a great show tutorial as well.
you can look at the way they came out in my pics.
Go to the home page and scroll down, there is a bunch of tutorials that you can use.

good luck!

I just wanted to let you know that I followed the tutorial on here to make a pillow cake and it came out fantastic (my first try). One of these days I'll get around to posting pics. I used the "Michele Foster" fondant recipe on here and it was really easy to work with. I made a half batch and colored it as much as possible while it was in the mixer. (Less hand strain.) Just remember if you color while mixing that the amount of powdered sugar you have to use will lighten the end result considerably.

I haven't made a shoe yet but I plan to soon!

Good luck!

Lavender will fade, but pink will fade even faster. But I made a lavender and pink pillow cake this weekend and simply kept it covered in foil in my fridge until delivery and it was fine.