Happy (belated) 4th of July!!!  Independence Day just happens to be my awesome-spice Dad's birthday, so we usually end up celebrating at the lake or the beach.  This year was his 50th bday bash, so the beach was calling us all.  We had a fabulous time!  Of course, there was cake.  Check it out:

He's a Mac snob, so I figured I would make him a super simple and uber chic cake with a big Apple logo and a beautiful black and white sugar flower.  As you can see, he enjoyed it.

My dad, the goofball.  ;)

I have been wanting to blog about covering a cake with fondant for a few months now, but I never had anyone around to take pictures of the entire process.  Last week, I had a fabulous assistant, Liz, to help me out.  She was the absolute best!  Meet Liz:

Liz is a very fast learner.  I taught her how to split and fill, crumbcoat, and fondant a cake.  She did a great job!  She even made the sugar flower for my dad's cake!  Now for the fondant lesson...

What is fondant?  Fondant is a dough made out of sugar that is rolled out and placed on a cake.  It gives the cake a very smooth look and it is so much easier to work with than buttercream, in my opinion.  It just looks better.  And you can do so many things to a cake covered in fondant that you can't ordinarily do to a cake covered in buttercream.  You can paint it, mold it, cut it, shape it...so much can be done with it.

1. Split, fill, and crumbcoat your cake of choice.  A crumbcoat is just a thin layer of buttercream that holds all of the crumbs in and hides any imperfections on the cake.  If the cake has any issues or if a layer is sticking out slightly, that will be even more noticeable once the fondant has been applied.

2. Take out a piece of fondant (I usually eyeball this, but here is a chart I found that may help with amounts).  I use Satin Ice rolled fondant.  I buy it from Into the Oven.

3. Cover your very clean work area with a small amount of cornstarch or powdered sugar so the fondant doesn't stick.  Knead the fondant by pressing it into itself and turning it slightly.  When you first begin kneading, the fondant will crack on the edges and look like this:

...that is what I look for when I'm kneading.  I knead until the sides are completely smooth every time I fold and turn.

4. Reapply cornstarch and cover the top and bottom of your freshly kneaded fondant ball as well.

5. Roll out the fondant.  (First, measure your cake to see how big your circle needs to be.  I use my roller to measure the cake.  For this particular 10" cake, I needed to make my circle about an inch longer than my roller all the way around.) Make sure you pick up and turn the fondant a quarter of a turn after every few rolls.  This helps keep the fondant from sticking to the table and helps you roll it out evenly.  Roll the fondant to about 1/8 of an inch thick.

6. When your fondant is ready to be placed onto the cake, place your roller at the top of your fondant circle, leaving a few inches of fondant (see below).  Then gently pull those few inches of fondant over the roller and roll it all up.  Carefully pick up the fondant-wrapped roller and mave it over to the cake.  Place the fondant that is hanging down in front of your cake and carefully roll it out on top of the cake, from front to back.

7. Working quickly but carefully, and with clean dry hands, smooth out the fondant all over the cake.  I begin at the top and work my way down the sides.  Be careful not to pull the fondant because it could crack and split.  If this happens, just rub a little solid shortening into the crack.  When I first started using fondant, my biggest problem was seams.  I couldn't cover a cake without leaving at least one very visible seam and I thought it was impossible to smooth out all of the folds.  I was wrong.  You just have to keep working with it.  All the folds will work themselves out.

8. Finally, when the fondant is all smoothed out, use a pizza cutter to cut off the excess fondant.  Cut at a slight angle all the way around the cake.  Then you can decorate however you choose!

*Remember: do not put fondant covered cakes in the refrigerator or the freezer (unless it is the topper for your wedding cake).  The moisture and condensation with cause the fondant to become a gooey mess.  Not pretty.

*Remember: HAVE FUN!!!

With love, Ev