the goose hates fondant

So by now, you might have already read my St. Paddy's Party Post, which explained that we celebrated Allison's Birthday and St. Patrick's Feast Day all at once. And what better way to celebrate than with a cake? And what is more fun than trying something new, like making fondant? Well, not making fondant, for one. But alas, with optimism, hope, and energy, I decided to tackle the challenge of making fondant in order to make my cake look so very pretty. I found a recipe on allrecipes.com for Marshmallow Fondant. I took the advice of one reviewer and used marshmallow creme instead of melting real marshmallows. My downfall? Perhaps. I dutifully mixed together the right things... Added TONS of powdered sugar... too much? maybe? Added vanilla for great taste... And started kneading it into smooth fondant perfection.

But perfect it was not. Not even close.

I kept adding more powdered sugar to keep it from sticking to EVERYTHING.

It was suppposed to be getting smoother, but not for me...

Eventually I decided it was smooth enough, so I rolled it into the recommended log shape and gave up for the night, saying a prayer it would work the next day.

Meanwhile, Friday comes and so I bake 3 layers of delicious chocolate cake.

Now, in between the photo above and below, you would think magic occurred. But no, there was no magic. Only swearing and messes and a sight too ugly to photograph. Plus, both Billy and I were covered in sticky-powdered-sugar-non-fondant-like-goop so neither of us were clean and sane enough to photograph the mess. But it wasn't pretty for awhile - the fondant wouldn't roll out without sticking, and then when we tried to put it on the cake, it was just MESSY. And ugly.

But then we patched the sides and covered the holes and added some green frosting decoration to cover the bad parts, which is how we get to the more-beautiful photo below.

A complete St. Paddy's/Birthday cake, with a fun shamrock topper and (fake) gold coins on the sides.

And the most important part? It was tasty. Very tasty. Very sweet, but tasty.

But is there more fondant in my future? Probably not.... no, definately not!