My daughter turned 4 and she wanted to have a Dora birthday cake. After last year's Little Einstein's Rocket cake I was up for making a Dora cake. This year I wanted to try and make and work with fondant. I researched and found that making marshmallow fondant was pretty easy and would taste good. For the most part that was right. Making the actual fondant was easy. Coloring it was pretty hard on my hands but in the end I was happy with the colors.
The next step in making this cake was to make the actual cake. I decided to make a red velvet cake (my favorite cake and I thought my daughter would appreciate the red/pink color) for the top tier and then chocolate (my daughter's favorite) for the bottom tier. I have heard so much about ganache this year that I also wanted to make chocolate ganache filling and put some raspberry in there as well.
Carving the cake was my first mistake. I accidentally carved it incorrectly which I then tried to correct with frosting (second mistake). By the time we were done decorating the frosting was melting and sliding off the cake and taking the fondant off with it.
In preparations for making this cake I read up and watch a few videos on using and decorating with fondant. Everyone I watched made it look easy to cover a round cake - WRONG!! I think the first thing we did wrong was take too long to cover it (it should take you no longer than 5 minutes). The second thing was I think that the fondant was a bit too dry causing it to crack. We ended up covering the top tier twice to cover up all the bumps and cracks.
I didn't have enough fondant to cover the bottom cake so I thought I would quickly make another batch. Well I have no idea what went wrong but that batch was way too dry and I could barely roll it out. As I placed it over the cake the fondant tore right in the middle making it practically unusable. At this point in my mind I was screaming thinking I wanted to just give up - this was WAY TO HARD for some one's 4 year old birthday cake!!! I took a deep breath and my friend & I figured out a way to salvage the cake. We ended up taking another piece of fondant and wrapped it around the bottom covering the parts that had fallen off. We then proceeded to cover up most of the other cracks with stripes. I was relieved and very much please with how it was coming along.
After putting flowers on the top tier it was getting late and we needed to go to bed. At this point though I noticed that both the cakes were bulging but there wasn't really anything I could do about it. I loosely covered the cakes, opened the window (it was cold outside so I made my kitchen a fridge) and went to bed hoping the cakes wouldn't fall apart overnight.
The next step in making this cake was to make the actual cake. I decided to make a red velvet cake (my favorite cake and I thought my daughter would appreciate the red/pink color) for the top tier and then chocolate (my daughter's favorite) for the bottom tier. I have heard so much about ganache this year that I also wanted to make chocolate ganache filling and put some raspberry in there as well.
Carving the cake was my first mistake. I accidentally carved it incorrectly which I then tried to correct with frosting (second mistake). By the time we were done decorating the frosting was melting and sliding off the cake and taking the fondant off with it.
In preparations for making this cake I read up and watch a few videos on using and decorating with fondant. Everyone I watched made it look easy to cover a round cake - WRONG!! I think the first thing we did wrong was take too long to cover it (it should take you no longer than 5 minutes). The second thing was I think that the fondant was a bit too dry causing it to crack. We ended up covering the top tier twice to cover up all the bumps and cracks.
I didn't have enough fondant to cover the bottom cake so I thought I would quickly make another batch. Well I have no idea what went wrong but that batch was way too dry and I could barely roll it out. As I placed it over the cake the fondant tore right in the middle making it practically unusable. At this point in my mind I was screaming thinking I wanted to just give up - this was WAY TO HARD for some one's 4 year old birthday cake!!! I took a deep breath and my friend & I figured out a way to salvage the cake. We ended up taking another piece of fondant and wrapped it around the bottom covering the parts that had fallen off. We then proceeded to cover up most of the other cracks with stripes. I was relieved and very much please with how it was coming along.
After putting flowers on the top tier it was getting late and we needed to go to bed. At this point though I noticed that both the cakes were bulging but there wasn't really anything I could do about it. I loosely covered the cakes, opened the window (it was cold outside so I made my kitchen a fridge) and went to bed hoping the cakes wouldn't fall apart overnight.
In the morning I was happy to find that the cakes were still together and had set up a bit because it was pretty cold outside. That day, the day of the party, I put the finishing touches on the cake. I made some confetti and placed those on the cake and then, my favorite part, I added shooting stars. I cut out thick stars from fondant and placed them on wires. I then put the wires in straws (to keep the dirty wire from contaminating the cake) and put them in the cake.
The end result was far from perfect but was still cute. My daughter loved the cake and said the flowers were her favorite part. I have a lot to learn and perfect when decorating with fondant but over all I had a lot fun.
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