Hi,

I'm planning a 3-tier Blue's Clues cake for my son. I want to put on lots of fondant appliques (characters, paw prints, etc), and I need to do lots in advance since it will be a big party and I'll have lots of last-minute things to do.

I was thinking that I should cut out the appliques and then let them dry on a piece of wax paper that is taped to the side of the cake pan I intend to use so that they dry in a curved shape. When they are completely dry, I won't have to worry about them changing shape, I'm assuming.

If I let them dry flat, then they would crack when applied to a curved surface, right?

What does everone else do?

It depends on the size of the fondant shapes your putting on the cake. If they are smaller you can dry flat then just put on the sides of the cake. If bigger you can dry on some crumpled saran wrap or wax paper to get some curve to your fondant piece.

I've struggled with this too. When I let them dry, they don't "wrap" around the cake. I tried making some and them covering them in saran wrap to keep them soft. This didn't work out well as it still dried (maybe I did it wrong). Recently I tried just what you described...drying them on the sides of the cake pan. That worked pretty well actually!

Winny: they are large enough that they would need to dry on a curve.