I have a cake that needs a monogram on it and I've never done one before. I was thinking about doing a fondant plaque and then writing the monogram on that. I want it to look very elegant. Does anyone have any suggestions on the best way to do this? I am worried that my freehand writing won't look very good.

Using a writing program, you can print the monogram, the trace it or transfer it to the fondant plaque in several ways.

The easiest and quickest, is probably the pin prick method to mark the lines of the monogram to guide your writing.

Depending on the size of the monogram, you can use an alphabet cutter or a chocolate letter mold (filled with chocolate or fondant).

Here's an idea from the wilton site...
http://www.wilton.com/decorating/basic/monogramtopper.cfm

Thanks for your replies. I ended up doing a FBCT for the first time and it worked out fairly well. I printed the font on a piece of paper, blew it up and then reversed the image. Here's a picture of the final result. My cornelli lace didn't turn out very well but this cake ended up being a nightmare. It didn't come out of the pan very well. Then, I used a new recipe for buttercream and it tasted good but was horrible to work with. I wasn't happy with the way it turned out the first time when I iced it so I scraped it all off and iced it again. The second time turned out even worse, the icing was sliding off the cake despite my attempts to thicken it up. My husband suggested that I put fondant on it so I tried that and that was a disaster too. The icing was oozing out the bottom of the fondant. So, I took that off and threw it in the trash. Finally, I mixed up a whole new batch of buttercream using Julies Less-Sweet buttercream and it turned out fabulous. I tried the upside down icing technique and I really like it. So, by the time I got to the cornelli lace, I really could care less how it looked, well, not really; but I was so ready to be done with that cake.

You really had to work for that one!! Your cake really looks nice though. Your monogram turned out great. Sorry you had so much trouble but you really came out great!! Good Job!

Wow, looking at your cake, I would have never thought you had all that trouble! It looks beautiful=) Jen

Thank you!

Geez, I just found this thread so I'm totally too late to help, but in my pix the gold monogrammed cake was done with gilded colorflow.

Gosh, I'm sorry you had so much trouble with this cake. Never would have known...it looks great though! I like your cornelli. And the monogram turned out very nice too! Great work!!

bobwonderbuns, your monogram looked great. Thanks for the idea! I'll have to keep that in mind next time.

Krystalp, thank you for your nice comments. All in all, I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. You can't really tell from the picture but I dusted the monogram plaque with some shimmer dust to soften the black lettering. If I could, I would change the border and make it smaller. Oh well, live and learn.