Relentless Inquiry

I finished the cake for tomorrow's handfasting, and it came out almost exactly the way I wanted it. Now it's safe in a box on the washer out in the laundry room where the cats can't step on it. 🙂

This was my first fondant cake. It's a lemon cake made with two 12" Wilton heart pans.

Each pan took a box of Duncan Hines cake mix, plus a box of pudding, to fill. I used lemon cake mix and lemon pudding, and I added dried lemon zest from Penzey's to the batter.

The layers are torted with Trader Joe's lemon curd. I piped a double row of buttercream along the sides to keep the filling from seeping through the edges.

A double batch of buttercream icing made enough to frost the cake and have about 2 cups left over. I used a bit of lemon flavoring in the icing, a tablespoon total for the double batch.

I did a basic crumb coat over the cake, and then rolled out my fondant. I used the Wilton online chart that said for a 4" high 12" heart cake I would need 48 ounces. The heart was 12" and the frosted cake was 3" high, so I aimed for a 12+3+3=18" circle. I didn't get it very circular, which bit me later. I had a 19" square embossing mat that I laid down on the smooth rolled surface of the fondant and did one careful roll across to get the texture.

Then I rolled up the fondant about 3/4 of the way onto my rolling pin and had my sweetie put the cake under it. I rolled the fondant onto the cake and smoothed it out as well as I could. I had a pair of fondant smoothers to use, but it was my first time and I felt clumsy with them. I didn't make a very good circle rolling out my fondant, so I ended up with a place where I had to close the edges together at the point of the heart. That's a no-no, oh well. I was afraid that if I rerolled the fondant it would get too dry and I thought it would stretch more on the cake as I smoothed it.

When I cut the edges and resmoothed things, I ended up with some ragged edges, so I piped a 21 star tip around the base.

I used Wilton fondant for the white main fondant, and then Cake Boss small packs of colored fondant for the colored hearts.