Hello everyone!
My daughter's 1st birthday is coming up and although I have no cake making experience, I really want to make her birthday cake! We are doing a flamingo theme, because we call her "the bird" and I've found some really cute decorations and fell in love with this flamingo cake:

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i2/kellihope/AAAADCz7yXUAAAAAAIJEeg.jpg

My problem is, I don't want to use any fondant on the cake, I really dislike the taste/consistency of it and don't feel that the look is worth the taste, if you know what I mean. If there is such thing as fondant that tastes delicious, let me know and that would solve all my problems!

Can anyone think of a way to make this cake without using fondant? I *think* I can draw the head on the top with frosting, so I'm thinking the feathers on the side will be the tough part (correct me if I'm wrong). Here are some thoughts I had, but have no idea if they would work.

- frost with buttercream, then use a tooth pic or something to etch in the feathers on the side.

- my husband suggested instead of doing feathers, just use some kind of frosting tip that will make the cake look "floofy" ??

- possibly making feathers out of sugar? Or I've seen online chocolate melted into plastic spoons then popped out when hardened, maybe I could do something like that, then somehow trim them to look like feathers?

- using pie crust - cut out my parts out of a flat pie crust, baking it, then "glueing" it to the cake with frosting. . .not sure if pie crust on top of cake would be gross??? lol! So then I thought maybe making a cheese cake and putting the pie crust on that, but most cheese cakes have grahm cracker crusts so maybe pie crust would taste weird??


LOL am I clueless or what? Here is the ivitation I am using:
http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i2/kellihope/flamingoinvite2.jpg

Please help thank you!!!
Kelli

Use MMF. . my husband eats all my leftovers by ITSELF! LOL he is obsessed.

It is simly marshmallows and powdered sugar. .can't get much better than that!

cute. have you tried MMF? tastes like marshmallows. I can't handle too much of it on my cakes, but my 4 year old loves it.....there are quite a few recipes on here for it, it's easy to make...

another thought....fondariffic fondant has flavors...tutti frutti, strawberry, buttercream...you can go on their web site and order a sample pak for like $6 which includes shipping....worth a try....it's really good, we actually eat chunks of it when we use it.

Or you could possibly do frozen buttercream transfers.....search and you should find some tutorials on it.

good luck, HTH.

Part of the appeal (and downright necessity) of using fondant, is the clean sharp lines and great definition it gives to 3-D decorations. Personally, if you were a client requesting this in buttercream, I would flat out tell you, "then peel it off, cause I'm not going to reproduce it in a medium that will not give the same polished look." So, there's my take.

The alternative ideas you suggest are creative, but sure would be more time consuming....aren't you looking to take it a bit easy for your first cake?

For examples of decorators that insist they can reproduce annnnnnnything done in fondant, in BC, just pop over to www.cakewrecks.com. Scarrrrry stuff.

Good luck. I would take it easy on myself and just do it in fondant.

If you choose not to use fondant and you are great at sculpting, you can get the buttercream super cold to sculpt out the design. I am pretty good at sculpting stuff out, not bragging just saying to make point, and I WOULD NOT make that cake without fondant. It is not gonna have the same look and you say you have no cake decorating expierence, it'll probably not be a good idea to just do buttercream. That is the CUTEST invitation and I know you want the cutest cake to go with it. Just like Slparker said there are some great fondant recipes in the recipe section. I suggest Macsmom Marsh,mallow Fondant. I used to make traditional fondant, my husband would never eat it. He eats the MMF. Besides if no one wants to eat it, then can always scrape it off...but I bet they eat it this time.

here is a great video on how to make marshmallow fondant using a kitchen aid mixer, which is the way I made my first ever batch of mmf and was very easy!!

The wonderful thing about fondant is if you don't like the taste, you can easily peel it away and enjoy the cake!

You could try rolled buttercream. You just roll it out like cookie dough, and cut it with a leaf shape for the feathers.
http://cakecentral.com/recipes/1603/rolled-buttercream-fondant-alternative

I don't like fondant either, what I would do if I was making the cake, is frost the cake in pink with enough buttercream and just make the feathers and head out of fondant. That way if people want to peel off the fondant they have buttercream on their cake.

I think you could achieve a look that resembles this cake with buttercream...you'll just have to experiment with tips that will give you a pointed feather look. I would try the leaf tip. Add some piping gel to it. It will help you get a point. But, I really have to chime in with the others who have recommended MMF. My kids LOVE it and I like it too. Over BC, it doesn't even harden. Since it can be a bit tricky to completely cover a cake in fondant successfully, you could frost it in BC (which you would have to do anyway, even if you covered it in fondant) and then add the head, eye, neck, beak and feathers cut out of MMF. You won't have any trouble making MMF. There are easy recipes on here. I see that you have lots of time to experiment before the party, so do a trial run or two to figure out what you like. By the way, SUPER CUTE invitation! So clever! Your daughter, and her name, are ADORABLE!

Good luck and have fun!

you could always try modeling chocolate... I've seen entire cakes covered in it, and it is easy to sculpt and cut designs out of like fondant. There is a recipe for it in this site too.

You could definitely use a leaf tip for the feathers, but really, fondant would be easier for those feathers. I really like mandysue's suggestion of icing the cake with buttercream and using fondant (or MMF) for the beak, eye, neck, and feathers. I like the look (and taste) of cakes that use a variety of textures.

Good luck!

Also, the most delicious-tasting fondant, imo, is Fondarific. The Fondarific website used to offer samples for the cost of shipping. I'm not sure if they still do, though.

Edited to add: They do still offer samples. http://shop.fondarific.com/main.sc

I did a castle cake for my daughter's birthday and I had many family members that told me before they *hate* fondant. I spent the money on chocopan and it was absolutely delicious. Everyone ate it. Not one plate with a pealed fondant *skin*.

I bought mine at f o n d a n t s o u r c e . com. ( you have to put it all together when you search, but this site blocks it.)

By the way, welcome to cake central!

I like all the ideas that you have gotten. If you have time, you can practice with your ideas and if you really want to stick with butter cream make a test cake and see if it works. That way you know that you will have a successful cake for the party (and you will not be as stressed). You can make chocolate clay that you can use for the feathers and I don't think you would mind the taste of chocolate.