Faye's Fairy Fondant

For Faye's 6th birthday she wanted a Silvermist fairy cake. (She's one of the fairies in the Tinkerbell books and the movie that is coming out in a couple of days). I decided I wanted to make her one this year, because store bought ones are just so boring, and I have liked making fun birthday cakes in the past. Well I got WAY ahead of myself and thought it would be fun to try fondant. My niece, Nichole made a cake covered in fondant for her little girl back in April and is was so darling.(here's a link to that cake http://houseofhind.blogspot.com/2008/04/big-one.html )I also really love those cool topsy turvey cakes (I call them Madd Hatter cakes...) and started looking up fondant cakes on the web. WOW! I was so inspired and just knew this was going to be something i would like. I even signed up for class learning how to decorate with fondant at Michaels. So I kind of jumped the gun... because this cake too FOREVER. Not even kidding, it was ridiculous. First off, I thought you had to do a homemade cake, so I went with a pound cake and thought "Oh, I'll bake the cake tonight (friday) and then just decorate tomorrow." Well, pound cakes take a long long time to bake... did I mention I was doing a layered cake! So I was up until 12:30 baking and letting cakes cool. I called Nichole a couple of times asking her a million questions and just so she knows - you CAN just use a cake mix! My mom used to decorate wedding cakes and I found out (from my sister Nellie, AFTER I had already started with the homemade fiasco) that through all the years of cake decorating my mom always used cake mixes. The cake turned out weird, it tastes more brownie-ish and the consistancy is thick like them also. I figured it was too late and I was going to just try and salvage it. The shape of the cakes didn't come out very good either, but I thought maybe the fondant would help hide it. I covered it with fondant and still was not very pleased. It turned out to be a Mad Hatter cake and I wasn't intending on it. (I just took pictures from a good angle so you can't tell as much). Once I got it all decorated it turned out okay. I'm sure Faye will love it when she sees it in the morning, as it is now mid-night again and I just spend another 2 hours tonight decorating after she went to bed. (I also spent about 3 hours this afternoon making the marshmellow fondant, and then covering the cake) Did I mention, this cake took FOREVER!?!

Don't you just love her little finger to the lip innocent look... kinda sexy for a kids toy?

I did really enjoy the decorating part, but this was definitely a learn-as-I-went-project. Making the flowers was pretty fun and I'm looking forward to learning from a pro instead of just making up my own techniques.