Hard to believe that it’s been eight years since I made this circus cake. It was one of my earliest fondant cakes, and I’ve learned a lot of lessons since this one. Like, that people don’t particularly enjoy eating masses of fondant, no matter how pretty the cake is.
Improvements
While fondant makes a great decor, there are alternatives that make a tastier cake, such as using a buttercream base with fondant decorations. Or using marzipan fondant, which can be rolled much thinner than homemade marshmallow fondant. You can see that the details on the tents, such as the stars, stripes, and triangles, are way too thick. That was probably a sign of adding too much sugar to my fondant, making the dough too thick. You can also see signs of this by the cracking on the red middle layer. Yup, too thick. The elephant, bear, and tiger, however, did well with that thicker fondant.
See how splotchy that “Happy Birthday” is? That’s what happens when you try to write on soft fondant. Since this is a circus cake, it turned out okay, as it gave it a more old fashioned look. But in general you will want to give the fondant time to set for a bit if you are going to write on it with edible marker.
Happy birthday L. Hope it’s a good one, buddy.
Originally posted on September 1, 2012
