Last night I did a cake for my son's Blue & Gold Dinner. It was my first fondant cake, and considering that fact, I am super proud of the way it turned out!


(close-ups in pics)

Some things I took away from the experience:

1. Freezer Paper Is My New Best Friend! I used it for everything - from covering work space to rolling out fondant. I love it, and I think I want to marry it.

2. Coloring MMF! I made three batches of MMF, since the first did not come out the way I wanted. Part of the reason for that was that I chose to wait to color it until after mixing in the powdered sugar...and I could NOT get the dark color uniform since I had to keep adding and adding, and my hands and arms got too tired! MIX the color in WHILE THE MARSHMALLOWS ARE LIQUID, before adding the PS. I know most who have made MMF know this already, it is so important that I do not think it can be overstated. Especially for dark colors like the navy that I used. (btw, the reason I was scared to do this was that I thought I wouldn't be able to gauge the color before adding all that very white PS, but all I did was make the color slightly darker than I wanted, and the PS brought it to just the right shade. I couldn't find info on this, so maybe this will help someone?)

3. Chocolate Transfers! I love them. 'nuff said.

4. Time Management! I need to budget my time better - although I did well to start with the chocolate transfers nice and early, I waited too long to start just about everything else because I wasn't sure about storage for things like filling and BC. Which leads me to:

5. Storage Guidelines! If I had been more certain about the proper way to store things, I could have made my fondant, BC, and cake earlier and not been so pressed for time at the last moment.

After a few more cakes to practice my skills, maybe I will ask for critiques - but as for now, I just want to revel in my accomplishment. Everyone loved it, and it made me feel great about caking after what was honestly a crappy day where everything seemed to be going wrong! Thanks for reading! And THANK YOU to CC for being here at all hours to help answer my many many questions.

Fondant is great fun to work with...play dough for grown-ups!

very well done.

That is awesome!!

I just did a cake last week for the same event...it is in my pictures (but not as good as yours!!).

Well done!

you did a great job! Keep caking!

Great job! The details on your badges are AWESOME!

Wow!! This is really awesome for your first fondant cake... You've really got some talent.

Also, this is the 2nd time this week I've heard someone raving about freezer paper, my curiousity is peaked.... I'm gonna have to give it a try. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you SO much everyone! I am SO happy with it - as were all the scouts and their families. In fact, the scoutleader gave me a plaque for "Outstanding Pack Parent" for donating the cake. What an awesome experience it's been!

KimberlysKakery - your cake looks awesome too! Thank you!

Toni - YES! Definitely try it - it's great. It was wide enough even for rolling out fondant for my 12x18 sheet cake and I barely needed any shortening to keep it from sticking, the shiny side is so slick. I just taped it to my table pad and went to work, then when I was done I lifted the tape and moved the fondant on the paper to the cake. I feel like I owe my cake to the freezer paper.