party cake making 2: novelty fondant icing

our *simple wedding* is in sept 2009!
in the spirit of a bargain hunter & home cook, i ventured into making my first DIY (fondant) novelty cake / DIY wedding cake...
after 2 days of resting, it was time to get on with the fondant icing - the most tricky part of the making of the party cake...
i couldn't believe my eyes when i saw "fondant" on sale at the local coles! must be for all those ladies out there who bake (fruit cakes)... there was also marzipan as well... i just got 2 packs of fondant - saved me from making it by scratch...
as this was my experimental cake... i just utilised my liquid colouring (didn't bother to get paste ones which would be much dearer)
although it made the fondant more liquid, it was managable... i added some cornflour & quite abit of extra icing sugar to make the fondant less "sticky"...
lovely vibrant colours... but as i was using liquid colouring, the colours were not very saturated, esp red - it was slightly anaemic...
i got the ganache out from the fridge a good 8 hours b4...
i also got the mud cake out 8 hours b4 from the fridge... they both came good into room temp (did sweat abit though)

i didn't have a cake saw, my trusty chef's knife was good enough...
the ganache was hard to spread and smooth to perfection - hence the lumpy surfaces (esp i don't own a st st palette knife... i just bought a cheapo plastic one from a $2 shop)...
on my next trial though, i will make the ganache more "liquid"

fondant rolling - very diff! have to use quite abit of corn flour to prevent it from sticking...
it was v hard to transfer the entire rolled out sheet on to the cake without breaking.... so i ended up rolling it on clingfilm and then flip the clingfilm over the mud cake - it worked!
when i first moulded the fondant to the cake... i didn't take much care pushing the air pockets out... i ended up having to prick alot of bubbles with a needle and smoothing it over... next time i will def take cake smoothing the fondant on...
spinning and moulding
fondant is abit like playdough... can be smoothed by gentle touching... but to achieve a glass smooth surface was impossible for me as i did't have a "smoother" (perspex moulding sheet)
so i used the plastic palette knife with abit of spinning....
then it was the "clay (fondant) figures"
fondant really slumped on me - i guess cos i used liquid colouring.... so the ducks ended up looking down and ducking down their heads abit...
i tried to hide the infections on the fondant with my special "double happiness" (vegetable) stamp....
and it worked!
didn't look as lumpy as b4....


VERDICT:

fondant = hard to manipulate, have to practise more

cake & ganache = not too hard to make, just takes time

taste test = very sweet, very like mud cake... one small slice will be enough for a person... dividing the cake into 50 pieces? small portions will not be a problem then

would i be able to make a DIY wedding cake? in the spirit of ESTY & saving $ - yes, but needs more practise