The girls from my mother’s group like to make things for our catch ups so I thought I’d try something a little different this time seeing as I’d only just gotten into cake decorating.
I made an egg-less chocolate cake, just to try out the new recipe I’d found. I baked it in my roasting tin because I didn’t have a tin big enough for what I wanted and didn’t want to have to try and match up different cakes and try to get them to stay together.
After it had chilled, I iced it with butter cream icing. I then rolled out some white fondant, using lard on the counter top to stop it from sticking. I laid the fondant over the bottom half of the cake and cut around the bottom to match the shape. Then I rolled and cut out my red fondant and tried to get the strips on there evenly, which was tricky. It was my second ever attempt at using fondant, so I was really nervous. I’m sure I’ll get better at it as I continue to try new things.
After the bottom was done, and I was happy with it, I pushed the colored popcorn into the butter cream icing at the top to make it look like a proper bucket of popcorn.
My 4 year old son was extremely impressed, as were the other mums, and he kept taking photos of it and asking everyone if they’d seen the cake. The egg-less cake was delicious and I’m glad I took a chance on trying something different.
The reason I used lard to coat my counter top is because that’s the only thing I’ve found so far that has worked. Icing sugar still left it sticking to the bench and the wax paper kept moving around.
I’ve heard since then, that using a big piece of thick, clear plastic lightly dusted in cornflour, will help. I’ll be trying that out next time I have a fondant covered cake to make. If anyone has any tips they swear by, I’d love to hear them. :)