"The great thing about cake is..."

"...it doesn't feel like work. You forget about work. Kids, adults, they all get the same look in their eye when they're decorating cakes... That's the magic right there." - Duff Goldman

I can't say I've been dreaming of wedding cakes, or that they aren't a lot of work, but they've certainly been on my mind a lot over the weekend, and I am having fun. :)

Friday we sanded our styrofoam cake forms, then mixed up royal icing to mask the styrofoam. Because that's as far as we could go with that (have to wait for the icing to harden before continuing), we also made sweet bread rolls over the course of the day, which were amazing and made the whole school smell so good!!

Last week I had come up with a cake design that involved one very large peony on the top tier. However, upon doing some research, I decided that actual peony petal cutters would look best, but they are very expensive. So, despite how boring and unoriginal they are, I've decided to go with roses. But roses didn't really fit with my design, so I've had to redesign the whole cake. I hope it will turn out as nice in person as I've imagined in my head and on paper...

Today we made rolled fondant to cover our cakes, but first we had to sand the royal icing on the styrofoam to smooth it out. Then we covered the cake forms with a thin layer of clear piping gel to help the fondant stick. Making fondant is not particularly easy, at least not the first time. One has to pay very close attention to temperatures and textures. Rolling it out is no cake walk, either - you have to keep moving it and dusting it with powdered sugar so it doesn't stick to the table, and then when you've reach the proper thickness, you have to very carefully maneuver it onto the cake without tearing it or dropping it off your rolling pin (yes, that is the voice of experience talking). But you're not safe yet! Now you have to gently and carefully smooth the fondant down over the sides of the cake, avoiding wrinkles and ruffles, and without pulling and tearing the top. *Phew!* I managed to get my top and bottom tiers covered and smoothed fairly well (for my first time using rolled fondant!). I wish I would have had time to do the middle layer, but I wanted it to be another colour, so by the time I was done mixing the colour, time was running out, and when you're rushed things definitely don't work. So after a few tries, I decided to wait until the next time we work on wedding cakes to cover that layer, which I believe will be Thursday. It's unfortunate because my plan for the middle tier will probably take the most time, other than the roses, and I won't be able to work on it until the fondant has dried a bit. C'est la vie!