Wednesday, June 16, 2010

To fondant...or not to fondant....



My daughter's birthday is coming, like I mentioned before, and I have been testing out fondants and icing recipes to figure out which is the best one.  Because my little girlie only turns one once...and her first taste of yummy sweetness has to be FABULOUS!!!

I have never used fondant before and was pretty nervous about it.  I found several webs sites that instruct you on how to make and use fondant, but the one I liked the most is http://whatscookingamerica.net/.  The writer doesn't talk down to you and I found the information VERY helpful.   The recipe for buttercream frosting is OUTSTANDING!  I think I am going to use it EVERY time I need frosting.  I have had a life long relationship with cream cheese frosting, but I think I can now say...creamcheese frosting has its place.  **

The recipe for fondant on the whatscookingamerica site is a marshmallow based recipe.  Someone had told me about this kind of recipe in the past, but I thought they were up in the night about adding marshmallows to frosting!  They weren't. :)  While I LOVED the texture of this recipe...which made it very easy to use...the taste was WAY sugary!  I even had Alex take it into work for his co-workers to taste and get their honest opinions.  They agreed on the sugary front.  They also weren't so keen on the texture.

But look how cute and professional the cake turned out!  However, notice the right side where I tried to fold the fondant into itself.  The whatscookingamerica web site suggested using Crisco to smooth the folds, but it didn't work too well.

The second recipe I tried out was from Allrecipes.com.  I was skeptical about this recipe because the reviews either loved it, or hated it.  I think this recipe is really the lesser of the two evils...the evils being the laymans fondant. :)  The consistency reminded me of play dough.  It wasn't as easy to work with and tore easily...but the TASTE WAS OUT OF THIS WORLD!  It was PERFECTLY complimentary to the buttercream frosting I got from whatscookingamerica.com.  And when it comes to cooking...yeah, it is cool if it looks nice, but if it isn't yummy?  Why bother eating it. 



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