No, that's not Velveeta
The Teapot cake was my first foray into fondant. On the one hand, fondant is easy because you are just rolling it out with a rolling pin, placing it on top of the cake and then cutting away any excess. On the other hand, there are a lot of small "gotchas" such as:
- Fondant can be very sticky. When rolling out, be sure to have some extra powdered sugar on hand to keep both your surface and rolling pin dry. Note that some sites recommend using corn starch to keep the surface and pin dry but when making a decision, consider what is going to taste better to those eating the cake.
- Fondant can be very heavy. It is necessary to cover the cake with a "tacky" substance in order to get the rolled fondant to adhere to the cake surface. Our teacher had recommended a piping gel to use as an adhesive but it looked like vaseline which turned me off. I created an apricot glaze (few tablespoons of apricot jam and water boiled together to create a glaze) which was brushed over the cake prior to placing the fondant on top.
- Fondant is colored by placing a few drops of color gel onto a piece of rolled fondant and then kneading it in. This takes some time and some strong hands hence why this cake has only 2 colors. I predict my future fondant cakes will also be limited to one or two colors due to waning strength in my poor aging hands.
The morning after this picture was taken, the fondant had slid off the cake and was crumpled up like a cheap discarded suit.
The teapot's handle is a piece of a pretzel and the spout is a sugar cone (yes, that is a "Don't Mess with Texas" shot glass supporting the pretzel handle). All accents were done in royal icing. When it was all said and done, the fondant only remained on the sugar cone. So, clearly, I need a little more practice with medium. While ready made fondant can be purchased, I made my own because it has a better taste. The fondant recipe I used called for things like liquid glucose and glycerine, which are not exactly ingredients that one typically has in the cupboard. I am going to make marshmallow fondant for my next attempt (http://whatscookingamerica.net/PegW/Fondant.htm) and use buttercream as my adhesive. I'll keep you posted on my results.
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