First ever fondant cake

Presenting to you, my first ever fondant cake!

The cake itself was just a plain vanilla sponge cake, baked in a rectangle pan. The sleeves were cut out of a loaf-tin, carved out into semi-circle shapes and attached on to the main body. As you can see, the cake was an attempt to create a Manchester United jersey…and any fan knows that their jersey is red, and hey, the cake looks pretty red in this image. The truth is, it was actually…pink!

Let’s re-trace back to what happened behind the scenes. I used Satin Ice white fondant, very conveniently delivered to my doorstep from Golda’s Kitchen (great resource for bakers, located in Mississauga).  The texture was awesome, felt very much like play-dough, and I worked it for a good 6 hours and it never failed me; however, the dilemma arose when I added red food colouring to the fondant, only to realize it would never actually become red! It took approximately 6 hours of constant kneading and rolling and re-kneading for the colour to remotely look like a shade of rose pink, at which point I gave up – hey, I had a deadline to work with. The result was a barbie pink Manchester United jersey, not to mention, hands and baking utensils all glowing an odd shade of pink. Sigh.

Yes, I have learnt my lesson! After having researched a couple of tips online, gum-paste colour  is said to be ideal for fondant or pastry, and usually, a darker cherry-tone of red works best with white fondant. Lucky for me, the fondant was strong enough to withstand 3 bottles of red colouring added to it and never lost its elasticity. At the end of the day, the birthday boy was overjoyed and certainly couldn’t wait to dig in! As for myself, I definitely felt the satisfaction a baker experiences to see  a well-received creation. It was well worth the effort, but I shall certainly be wiser with my next cake

Till then, toodles.