This week in my cake decorating classes, we were to learning how to cover a cake with fondant, and how to make fondant inlays, overlays and bows.

The thing that I have started to LOVE about fondant, is that it is just like playing with playdough!  It is so relaxing (when it works) and almost therapeutic!  Had a bad day, take it out on a hard piece of fondant!  That stuff is TOUGH if any air has gotten into it!  Apparently you can put it in the microwave for around 4 seconds, flip it over and then put it in for 4 seconds more.

Here is a picture of a fondant overlay.  As you can see, use two of the same cutters, of different sizes and simply put the smaller one on top.  Super simple!

This bow looks very complicated, but it totally isn’t!  All you have to do is cut out long ribbons of fondant, using your ribbon cutter, fold them in half, let them dry, and viola! You have the pieces of a bow ready to go.

When your pieces have dried, start with the ones on the bottom, space them out, build upwards, and you’ve got yourself a fondant bow cake topper!

As this was the first time I had ever covered a cake in fondant, I made a crucial mistake and rolled my fondant too thin.  It ripped, it wrinkled, I had to peel it off and got chocolate cake all over the white fondant.  I cried.  It sucked.  I hated fondant.  But, I persevered, made a slightly better mess of things than I had previously, and managed to produce this-far-from-perfect fondant covered cake!  My cake from this week, is MUCH better (lessons learned) and I will post that soon!