My Attempt at Cake Decorating #1

For my nephews first birthday this past January, I decided to make an attempt at decorating a cake as they do on those fabulous shows like Ace of Cakes and Cake Wars. Due to my limited experience working with fondant and having never taken a class of this sort during culinary school, my little experiment was going to be a complete crapshoot. I knew the design I wanted, I was just slightly unsure on how to get there.

I started with a 5x9 loaf pan and divided my cake batter into four separate bowls. Using blue gel based color I died each bowl of batter varying shades of blue. I will fill you in on a little secret-- use cake mix, at least for your first try. White cake mix is sturdy and easy to color. I made my own buttercream (see spring lemon curd cupcakes) and used 2 boxes of white fondant. I had two loaf pans that I was using so I baked the cakes in batches of two. Since it was his first birthday I also bought a #1 cake mold that I filled with plane white cake.

While the cakes baked I rolled out my fondant into a rectangle big enough to cover the cake. I took a small chunk of white fondant that I had left over and dyed that a pale blue. I rolled that out into a sheet bf enough to cover the #1 part of the cake.

After the cakes had cooled I trimmed them down and layer them with the buttercream. I carefully covered the cake with the rolled out white fondant as best I could, same with the #1 and blue fondant. Although he could not appreciate the 10 hours it took me to make it, I think he enjoyed it.