I am doing three wedding cakes(6 flavors! yay!) for my brother's wedding and we have decided on fondant for them because it's outdoors and the bride is afraid they would melt if I just did buttercream.

I like the idea of the fondant but none of us want to actually serve the cake with the fondant on it, so we're going to have the caterer's peel it off before they serve it.

I am making vanilla bean butter cream with high ratio shortening, I'm also doing a vanilla bean cream cheese icing. I was wondering if I iced the cake and then put it in the freezer to sort of "chill" the icing and then smoothed the icing with a hot spatula...and then put it back in the freezer to just harden a little bit (not like frozen just cold and not mushy) if it would be easier to put the fondant on and have it look smoother.

Would that make it easier for the fondant to peel off? I know I've seen fondant peeled off before I just don't want it to take the icing with it.

Does anyone have any tips on this? Or even know what I'm talking about or am I just rambling like a crazy person?


btw the wedding is in late September and the farmer's almanac is predicting a somewhat cool day for the wedding so I'm not really concerned about heat being a problem, I just want to make sure the fondant doesn't look like crap.

I think that you should just not use fondant if you're going to do that. Bride's fears aside, I can't imagine the fondant coming off cleanly, so you'd be handing ugly cake to the guests.

I agree with varika on this. you shouldn't use the fondant if you are just gonna pull it off. if you don't like the flavor don't use it , have you tried satin ice brand fondant? it's very good , how about MMF have you tried that? you can also knead flavors in to the fondant.

also if the guests dont like it , ive found that they just don't eat it. no point in destroying the hours of beautiful work you've done before the guests even get it.

since you are making vanilla bean buttercreams you should let everyone see those beautiful specks dotting your cake and not use fondant.

I've seen fondant being peeled from cake before serving on the Food network (it was a wedding in Disneyworld), it was clean and looked so easy but I don't know exactly if there is a special procedure to do it maybe one of the pastry chefs on CC knows the steps to successfuly do it. Sorry I cannot help you with this but it can be done for sure! Good luck

Yeah..there are plenty of places that do that..As good as fondant can taste..not everybody likes the
the texture, but likes the look.

Just my opinion....If I were served a piece of cake that had the fondant pulled off, I would probably give the waiter a funny look. I would feel like he "touched" or "played with" my food between the time it was cut & then served to me. I would let the guests choose for themselves on whether or not they want to eat it, but of course that is just me & ultimately it it the brides choice.

FYI if it is the taste you're worried about - I usually make my own fondant, however I was at an event recently and sampled the FondX brand of fondant. Oh my goodness......I could have eaten the whole pound of it right out of the tub...it was YUMMY!

Sorry, just thought of this....I know that if you sprinkle some powdered sugar in between the tiers on a stacked buttercream cake it helps keep the frosting from pulling off when you remove each tier. If you sprinkled powdered sugar over the buttercream before putting the fondant on, that might keep it from pulling the icing off when removed. However, it might not stick to the cake very well either. If you try it, let us know!

Just curious since I've never seen it done before, do they put more buttercream or anything on it after the fondant is pulled off or just serve it plain? I could see one guy in the kitchen pulling the fondant off while another guy is piping some buttercream on each piece before being served. Even if it is just a pretty little heart on each piece, I think something like that could be a nice alternative.

The places I have seen doing this are some hotels. They do their own cakes and cut them, and yes they usually fix the buttercream after they take off.
Personally, I say let everybody decide if they want the fondant or not. That's too much trouble for me .
lol
Edna

The time I saw it it was done by the Disney pastry chefs, it did not look like it was fixed, it did look a little spiky, I mean you could tell the fondant was pulled from the BC but still looked fine but you never know they edited big chunks of the program to make it fit the schedule time on air

Why don't you just make a dummy cake and make sheet cakes on the side. That would make things much easier.

I agree that the guests should make the decision themselves, a good number of them will eat the fondant if you use good flavored fondant...but if you use a crusting bc that you have only spritzed slightly to "glue" your fondant onto you will have better luck with the peeling.

Let the guests remove the fondant themselves. Some might actually like fondant. My aunt LOVES it! So your cake stays pretty and they can make a choice!

Beth

Thanks for the advice everyone. About 90% of people I have served cake to absolutely hate fondant. The bride hates fondant everyone in my family hates fondant, but we like the look of it so we're definitely going with it.

I did see it done on the food network Disney World thing and it came off fine. I'm not worried about what the cake looks like after it's cut, I just want it to look good before it's chopped up into bits.

It does sound like a good idea to let people peel their own fondant off but I'm afraid that they will just not want any cake at all if they see fondant. One of my other brother's just had a wedding and his rehearsal dinner had a fondant cake (not made by me btw) and everyone thought it was yucky because of the fondant.

I'm just really proud of my cakes and I want people to taste them and like them. What do you guys think about the method for putting on the fondant? Freezing the cake first and then putting it on.

I'm definitely doing the vanilla bean buttercream (tastes 100% better than vanilla extract, even though I still add extract lol) I think it will be a fun surprise for people when they cut the cake open and it has vanilla bean in it.

I don't see how 90% of them hated fondant!? Was it Wilton fondant?? It really doesn't taste bad(except wilton)...it's more of a texture thing.


Be careful with freezing the cake before fondant. I've covered cakes that were chilled in the fridge and it's usually fine although I've had some issues. My fondant comes out better on room temp cakes unless it's carved.

I dont think the cake should be freeze...just refrigerated. Mamacc is right..too much moisture!
Edna

I think chilling, not freezing is the way to go. I don't know if this will aid in the stripping of the fondant (I, too, saw the disney wedding special you saw and couldn't believe they did that!).

I absolutely LOVE vanilla bean buttercream--it's one of my favorites! Definitely tastes SO much better than regular. If you can get vanilla bean paste, I recommend it for that, because it combines the best of using fresh beans and no need to add additional extract. More cost-effective than using straight beans as well.

Yeah, I had thought about condensation being a problem.

I would serve it with the fondant and allow the guests to peel it off. I know alot of people who just love the taste of it and there are alot of great tasting fondants out there. Another option is that maybe if you made extra buttercream and supplied that to the caterers, perhaps they wouldn't mind piping a quick swirl ontop of each piece of cake before they went out to the guests. I don't see why they wouldn't if you supplied everything and asked nicely.

katilia, why don't you use a good crusting BC, then paper towel the frosting so that it takes a fondant effect?

that way, you don't have to waste the fondant at all, get great looking cakes, & everyone's happy eating them? JMO.

The thing that gets me is that when you slice a wedding cake, there is very little fondant on it, except the people who get the outside pieces...I also would not want to eat cake that has someone peeling fondant off of it! People who dont like fondant just dont eat it...

If you hate it that much, use rolling chocolate or a better quality fondant, which both taste terrific! Like Masse or something. It can be rolled very thin and you can add flavors to it if you like Or like someone said, make a dummy cake and serve sheet cakes.

The whole idea of peeling all that fondant away and serving it really sounds gross to me the more I think about it!

I would definitely let them eat around the fondant, There is nothing wrong with doing that at all. It is not going to affect the flavor of your cake in any way, most importantly it helps to keep your cake moist. Most of my family hates fondant and they just eat around it and rave about the flavor of my cakes. I have had to peel fondant off of a cake several times for a mistake or whatever and it is an absolute mess. So unless you are going to have that wedding cake cool up to the time of the actual cutting it will ruin your cake to pull it off.

Are you mixing your buttercream on low? I saw someone say that not mixing on low causes the air bubbles. I have that problem too, but haven't gotten to try their suggestion yet. Too much worry about the peeling thing. Just cut the cake, hand them the piece and let them deal with it. If they don't know how to take it off themselves or eat around it........... If this is the biggest problem they have all day-----------Thank you Lord!