I am making a cake for my church and it is going to be a stacked gift box cake. To make the boxes look perfectly square, I decided to pre-cut the sides and tops out of fondant and will apply them to the cake Friday.
My only worry is that when it is time to cut the cake, when we pull the fondant off, it will pull the icing off the sides? Does anyone know of anyway I can avoid this? Can I wrap the cake in plastic wrap then apply the fondant? Please Help!!!

Why do you want to pull the fondant off? I have not made too many fondant cakes, but the ones I have made, I just cut the cake with the fondant still on it. Most people ate, and liked it, but a few pulled it off themselves. (I used marshmallow fondant).

I saw a thread a few weeks ago about cutting cakes with fondant. I'll see if I can find it again for you.

Here is that thread.

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-615269-fondant.html

I would just put a layer of waxed paper in between. Cut it to fit, press it to the cake, put a little icing on the outside of the waxed paper, and attach the fondant panels.

I made a cake that was supposed to look like a paper shopping bag and I made panels of fondant/gumpaste and let them dry for a couple days. Right before the party, I put some extra fresh icing on an already fully iced buttercream cake and attached my panels. At the party when it was time to cut the cake I pulled off the panels and it pulled off some of the fresh buttercream I had put on, but left the older buttercream alone. I think that is an answer to the question you were asking? Hope it helps!

You don't want to have a plastic wrapped cake in your repertoire.

Hmm.

So the fondant sides you've made will be dry and crisp to hold nice straight edges but then will be be applied onto buttercream, right?

Y'know I'm not positive but I think you'll be able to slide a knife in between there to get the fondant 'plate' removed and keep most of the buttercream on the cake so I think it will be servable. But I mean a bunch of slices don't get the outside icing anyways so don't let it bother you.

So it might pull or re-arrange some of the icing, price of doing a beautiful cake huh. No worries. The most important thing is don't let on that it's significant to you.

I have two kids, Chef-boy formerly known as Chef-wanna-be. And the lovely Red-Headed Girl.

The Red-Headed Girl made a wonderful Dorie Greenspan cake the other day for a shower. Forgot to put the flavoring in the dang smbc. Hmm. Scrape it off says I.
No way no time says she.
Just do not let on to anyone and no one will know. Trust me, RHG, says I.
Ok she promises.

Hey, wait --

Make a confectioner sugar glaze with the flavoring and drizzle the cake says I.
It'll look stupid says she.
No, you're freaking Picasso says I drizzle and swirl and drizzle some more.

The Little Red-Headed Girl's cake was inhaled in under five minutes.
And everyone lived happily ever after.

One more quickie: She* made me a cake once with chocolate flecks in the icing that were not written into the recipe--she felt so bad like we all are wont to do--I said no worries--chocolate flecks are not really a problem for me.

A few days later in the mail arrives a cookbook offer with a huge glossy picture of a gorgeous cake loaded with the exact same chocolate flecks in the icing!!!!



*And don't she get the points for making the cake baker a birthday cake!!!

Why would anyone pull off fondant before serving the cake? Cut it as is and let the person determine whether or not they want to remove it. If you are serving quality fondant (either homemade or prepackaged) it should not be something people find distasteful. The exception would be Wilton's which is fine for dummies and modeling, etc. If you automatically remove it as if you are announcing to the entire world that you think it is substandard and not worthy to be served.

That's why I removed mine, they were hard-as-rock fondant/gumpaste panels that A) You couldn't cut through unless you have a chainsaw and B) If you did cut it and serve it, your guests would be leaving with a few less teeth than they came in with! I agree for regular fondant covered cakes just cut it with it on there, but for this specific application, you HAVE to remove the panels, no matter what type of fondant is used.

Rather than attaching the panels to the cake, why not build the box AROUND the cake so it's not actually touching the cake? Then, you can just lift the whole thing off without disturbing your icing. Plus, you'll have a nice box sitting off to the side instead of torn up pieces.

That's what I do when I make my tool box cake. It's cookies built around the cake, like a gingerbread house.

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=104841

I saw one of those cake shows on television where they were making a stacked box cake. They covered each cake in fondant and then attached the dried panels to the first layer of fondant.

Thanks for your replies. I think I will try the fresh icing thing. Thank you guys so much for the help! I appreciate it!!!