Fondant- The Adults' Play-Doh

I LOVE, Love, love decorating with buttercream. It is my medium of choice. You can do anything your creative mind can think of with buttercream. However, it is messy and my fingertips always managed to get stained (even with gloves on).

Fondant (the other icing) is like Play-Doh, but for cake decorators. The clean-up is much easier, but I feel that the decorating takes much long. Every piece of decoration is cut and formed by hand. Technology, that I don't yet have, has made it much easier because now you can use your Crikcut(sp) to cut out lettering and shapes. Even without such new-fangled contraptions, you can still create endless decorations with fondant. Nonetheless, I like the feel of piping flowers and borders better.

Anyways, here is my first fondant cake that I made for my sister's birthday. I ran into tons of troubles and frustrations while working on it. The illustrations in Wilton books make it seem so much easier than it really is. Problem #1- Smoothing the fondant on the sides. This cake had a pudding filling and was nice and spongy so the cake would move every time I smoothed it. Which resulted in a lot of folds and airbubbles on the sides. In the pictures it always looks like the icing is nice and firm against the cake. I found this impossible to achieve.
Problem #2- You really need to have the cutters for the shapes. As I was trying to cut out the shapes with a knife the fondant would tear or pull. I ended up using my tips to cut out circles that I latter fashioned into a leaf shape.
Problem #3- It dries out pretty fast and become brittle. When piecing the cake together some of the decorations I made began to look like pieces of baked rubber.
Problem #4- Judging the perfect amount of water to use to attach decorations. Honestly, this problem probably sprung out of frustration. By the time I reached the decoration part of making this cake I was ready to buy a cake from the local grocery's bakery [gasp!].
Problem #5- I really fades quickly. Buttercream cakes can also fade, but usually their colors darken. At least this is what I have found to be the more common occurrence. This sucker when from funky pastels to baby shower pastels. I stored the cake in the refrigerator, so it has been for the most part out of the light (except when my 3 year old is looking for juice).

All in all, it was a learning experience. I don't think I will let fondant get the best of me. I think next time I will try it on a smaller, single layer cake.