The cake for our birthday girl...

Long before her birthday Chelsea was searching the net finding super cool looking 13th birthday cakes. I couldn't let her down; I had big plans for Chelsea's 13th birthday cake. Fondant! I had never used the icing before, but I was determined to try. I wanted to do something fancy with zebra print and dots, two of Chelsea's favorite things.

So, off to the internet I went. I found so many neat designed, I learned how to make zebra cake, and I found an amazing fondant recipe. For all you ladies interested in making easy fondant, check out this site:

http://whatscookingamerica.net/PegW/Fondant.htm

First came the cakes. I made four cakes, two 6" cakes for the top and two 9" for the bottom. I found a site that had instructions for a zebra cake. I made two cake batters (straight out of the box) and then layered the white and chocolate cake batters. You take a ladel full of white, pour in the centre of the pan. Then a seperate ladel for the chocolate, and pour in the centre of the white cake mix. You continue alternating and pouring into the centre of the previous one until your pan is full enough. It was surprisingly easy, and turned out awesome.

I then iced the layers with buttercream icing before applying the fondant.

Then came the fondant. I followed the instructions pretty closely. When rolling the fondant onto my roller, it kept sticking to itself and then becoming useless (had to reroll the stuff - good thing its pretty forgiving and you can reroll the stuff over and over). I decided to put a layer of plastic wrap on top, so that the fondant couldn't stick. It worked, yeah!

The fondant is really stretchy. As you can see its stretching down the cake tray. You need to work pretty quickly to stretch and smooth the fondant in place around the cake before it pulls too much. It wasn't very difficult, just a little tricky. As you can see, definately not a smooth cake, but you can't tell once its decorated.

Then came the decorating. I used a lot of black dye to get the fondant this color (which was a dark grey), but it looked pretty good. Next time I'm going to let the fondant sit longer before I use it to absorb more of the color. The zebra stripes were so fun, and easy because they don't have to be perfect I used a knife and scissor to cut the strips. The second layer was harder because you have to space the dots to look somewhat nice. I bought fondant cutouts for the circles.

(note: the second layer is supported with dowels in the first layer, and is on a covered cardboard piece)

Ta da!!! The final cake. I also cut out letters (fondant cutouts from Michaels) for the top. I was so impressed, that I called a friend right away. Now I can't wait until the next cake.

And most importantly, the party girl and her cake. We had a family party (even those get pretty big at our house). I kept the cake hidden until everyone was over, then we sang, Chelsea blew out candles (she did have to take a second breath to get that last candle), and ate the cake. It was hard cutting into it, but it tasted great!

Most importantly, Chelsea loved the cake. That's why I did it.

As an aside, while we (my friend Jocelyn came to help) were trying to roll the fondant the first couple of times, it was not working and I was starting to feel that it wouldn't turn out. We took a break, Jocelyn had to go finish her studies, and then I started again. But before that, I prayed that God would allow me to do this for Chelsea. Well, it worked on the first try. Praise the Lord for considering the small things in life important enough to listen to. I couldn't let that pass, as I needed to ensure praise was given where it is deserved.