A friend of mine has asked me to make her wedding cake for her. This is a new one for me. Around here, wedding cakes will consist of the main, three layer cake and two or three full sheet cakes. I've done the sheet cakes for three weddings now. Let me tell you, adding filling in a single layer of a full sheet cake is a interesting experience. I've never done a main cake before. I've also never worked with fondant before.
The bride wants a three tier cake with white fondant decorated with chocolate ganache swirls and fresh flowers. I have no experience in making something like that so I've decided that what I need is some practice before the big day. Yesterday seemed to be a good day for a practice cake because my oldest was coming home from her big trip. I baked a strawberry cake and hunted up a marshmallow fondant recipe.
Lesson one: check package sizes before making fondant. Big marshmallows are now being sold in 10.5 oz packages and small marshmallows are still being sold in 16 oz. I subbed a bag of big ones for small ones and ended up almost messing up my fondant beyond repair. It still ended up being very stiff and difficult to roll out.
Lesson two: make ganache well ahead of time to be sure it's the proper temperature for piping and make sure it's all the same temp. The cold spots/hot spots thing kept screwing up my piping. And of course I need practice shaping the swirls.
I tried making a fondant rose. It's ok. It needs work, but luckily I don't need to know how to make roses for the wedding cake.
A close up of the chocolate shell border on the bottom. This will be the decoration at the between the layers.
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