Sorry - I need to wind down so I can fall asleep, my alarm goes off in about 4 hours so I can go to my 'real' job. I figured a quick vent might help.

I am doing a cake for a friend's birthday tomorrow. It's a tiki head to go with the luau theme. I have had the worst time with this entire cake. First, I left the sour cream out of one of the batches of batter. It's a chocolate stout cake using a sour cream cake as the foundation... hello, sour cream is in the name! I tried to make gumpaste hibiscus flowers and had gorgeous petals, but they never came together just right and wound up breaking off the wires. OK, no flowers. Then I made my chocolate fondant tonight using the MFF updated recipe. I must have really done something wrong because I never could get it at a good consistency. It was still crumbly after adding a TON of glycerin. I wound up rolling it out 3 times and finally gave up. OK, I can recover from that - I'll just leave the cake covered in chocolate buttercream and use fondant for my accents. So I start to smooth the icing using the viva method and all the icing is peeling off - the crust should have formed like 3 or 4 hours ago since I've been arguing with my fondant since about 9pm (it's almost 1am now)!

I give up. I dusted the whole thing in PS and corn starch and hopefully it will crust up enough by the morning so I can smooth it before I go to work. Then when I get home at 6pm I can roll and cut out his facial details, get showered, get the baby to the sitter, and get over to her house by 8pm.

Wish me luck.

Oh my dear! I hope it all works out for you tonight!! Bless your heart, I have days just like that!

Good luck! I always have a hard time with Chocolate Fondant, it always seems too dry and cracks. I haven't figured out the trick yet.

Hope you can relax and have some fun tonight at the birthday party.

If it helps for next time - I use Rhonda's Ultimate Chocolate MMF (it's in the recipes section on here) - and it's great. Just watch you don't put in too much powdered sugar. It is always stiffer than the vanilla MMF - but I just microwave it for 3 - 5 secs, and it's fine.

Thanks for the additional recipe. The buttercream did crust up enough for me to smooth this morning, and I was able to make 2/3 of his nose and 1/2 of his eyes before I left for work. At least were back on the right track and his little face is starting to take shape.