Fondant Class

For the last 3 1/2 weeks I've been taking a weekly Wilton fondant class at Michaels and I can't even say how much fun it was. It really surprised me how much I liked it. I enjoyed the first course too, which is a prerequisite for doing the fondant course, but it involved a lot of piping and mixing different consistencies of icing. Working with fondant was a lot more tactile; at times it reminded me of working with clay or sculpture.

The first three weeks of the course covered a lot of flower-making. We made all kinds of pretty flowers: daisies, roses, calla lilies, carnations and mums. We also made a large bow, like what you'd see on a birthday present and covered a cake board in fondant.


For the final class, we learned how to cover an entire cake with fondant. I really wanted to take advantage of having a Wilton teacher present so I brought in a square cake which is slightly more difficult to cover than a round cake. It ended up not being as hard as I thought it would be. After rolling out the fondant and flipping it on to the cake, I had to start with the corners of the cake (not the sides). And then trim along the bottom.

It's amazing what a coat of fondant will do to a cake! I wish I had taken a photo of before and after. My cake had had a little accident before the class so it was a little lopsided, plus the butter cream icing was starting to melt (not to mention that I hadn't smoothed out the butter cream icing very well and in some places it wasn't thick enough). Throwing on a coat of fondant made it look so smooth and pretty!

Here it is after decorating!




Some final thoughts after the course... I would never put a cake directly on to a fondant covered cake board again. It sucked all the moisture out of the bottom layer of my cake. Also, if I ever do a ball border again, I would prep the balls ahead of time. It took 45 minutes to get all of that border done and then I ran out of time to finish my flowers.