I'm a newbie here. My daughter (in from school) and I just decorated our first cake. With the learning curve, it took us two days and some of the fondant started drying out by the time it was completed. We gave it to a friend who, very reluctantly, told me that the cake was dry and "tasted 'egg-y'" ( whatever that means).

Hopefully our next venture will go more quickly. My question is , how long does it take to typically complete all of the process including fondant appliques and how do you keep it moist during the process.

I've read that you shouldn't put it in the frig. Does someone have a system to avoid the cake and fondant from drying out?

Day 1: Make fondant. Bake cakes, level and wrap in plastic wrap.

Day 2: Make buttercream. Fill and crumbcoat cakes. Put in fridge.

Day 3:Cover with fondant and decorate.

That's my ideal schedule, but most of the time I will procrastinate a bit and so the whole thing will get done in three days instead of two. The more cakes you do, the faster you get, depending on the design.

The fondant helps keep the cake moist until it's eaten. If your cake was dry, it might be because it was cooked a little too long, or beaten too long, or it might just be that the person you gave it to was used to mix cakes and you made one from scratch, or something like that.

when you made the mmf, did you coat it with crisco and wrap it twice in saran wrap and then into a ziplock bag?

I didn't coat the fondant in Crisco. I just put it in a ziplock bag. It seemed to really dry out during the time we were cutting the appliques and putting them on the cake. I will do the Crisco thing next time.

Tonight was our second attempt and was a total failure. We had tried two new cake recipes and didn't like either. I was trying to get a spring green color and it turned out to be camo-colored. I put too much BC and the fondant was lumpy. My daughter worked very hard on hers and it was looking really good but she inadvertenly stuck her fingernail in the fondant.
This was really a learning experience night. That brings me to the question of what do you do with the cakes that don't turn out right. With the cost of all of the ingredients, you really hate to just throw them away.

Thanks, Texas Rose, for the helpful time table. I will spread my next project out a little more.

This is my schedule when I ahve more then one cake to do. If it's one cake, I can usually do it in 2 days.

Day 1)I make fondant, buttercreams, whatever I need ahead of time.
Day 3)Bake cakes, cool, wrap, any other decorating needs
Day 4) Crumb coat, chill, frost or cover in fondant, finish decorating

Definetly have to grease up fondant and cover in plastic wrap as well as place in ziplock bag. Also, while working with it, keep what your not using covered. Another possiblity is, you may need to try a different fondant recipe. Not everyone gets the same results witht he same fondant. And, as you know, keep practiving, cause practice makes perfect.