A Happy Birthday Easter Cake - More Fun With Fondant

Tomorrow we will be celebrating many birthdays along with Easter.  One family member actually has a birthday tomorrow.  I was asked to make the cake so I decided to do a two-tier cake with the bottom layer being the birthday cake and the top layer having a more spring-like theme.  I had intended to do more decorations but I've been sick the past several days and had a slightly sick baby, too.  So after five hours in the kitchen this afternoon, beginning with making the cake and ending with the fondant decorations, I decided I better finish up and feed the family dinner.

I was able to get four names across the bottom (sending a shout out right now to my sister Ann and my nephew Luke for having nice short names...thanks!), each separated with a fondant candle. 

Now that I've had a few attempts working with fondant, I thought I'd share a few things I really like about it. 

1.  A lot of people seem to like the taste.  That is a bit of a relief to me because I am not particularly fondant of it.  (I know...really bad joke. ; )  Some day soon I'm going to attempt to make my own.  I've already purchased the supplies to try it; I just haven't had time.

2. I prefer to buy white fondant and add my own color.  At first I was hesitant to do this but fondant takes color so well...and easily!  (You might want to wear decorating gloves when doing this because your hands take color easily too. : )  When doing this I recommend the old rule of "Start with a little; you can always add more."  I had intended for a much more pastel look on this cake, but ended up with really bold colors.  It still came out ok.  It just wasn't what I had planned for. (Here's a picture with better lighting so you can see what I'm referring to.)

3.  I really like that fondant is very much like playdough in that you can always re-roll and remold it.  There were a few times when I messed up with the fondant molds in doing the letters and trim.  No problem.  Simply re-roll and put it back in the mold.  EASY!

Other notes:

This is the second time I've tried a two-tiered fondant cake and neither time have I used supports and had no problems.  I'm guessing that's because I used 6-inch and 8-inch pans.  If I went bigger, I would probably have to dowel it.  But for these sizes at least I could get away with no dowels. 

The cake is almond flavored, filled with lemon curd, and frosted with an almond flavored butter cream.

Happy Easter!