OF FALL AND FONDANT

On Saturday, my sister (Renee) and I decided to try decorating a cake.  I recently ordered a Cricut Cake machine, which I had very briefly used just to see what it could do, but the main thing that I wanted to try was fondant.  Our first decision was the theme for our cake and, obviously, we chose "Fall."  I had baked the cake that morning and had delicious homemade buttercream frosting ready to go, so I showed Renee how to color gum paste that we could use to cut our leaves and letters.  This was so much fun, and the machine did a beautiful job of cutting our colored leaves.  Didn't Renee do a beautiful job getting the colors just right?  After all of our decorations were cut, it was time to frost the cake.  I can't put into words how much I dislike this part of the process.  Well, I do have some words, but I shouldn't use them here.  Fortunately, Renee is a very patient person, and she did a wonderful job with the frosting even though I don't yet own a spreader.  She worked so patiently with the frosting until it was very smooth!!!!  She was quite disappointed when I wanted to cover the smooth frosting with fondant, but it was something that I really wanted to try.  We ended up taking our cake to a family reunion on Sunday, and it was very well-received.  I was surprised, though, by the number of people who had never heard of fondant and then others who just didn't care for it.  It appeared that some people didn't realize that it's okay to pick the leaves off of the cake when/if they get in the way of cutting it.  Truth be told, they might not have been that easy to pick off.  The die-cut gum paste gets kind of hard (like candy), and can't easily be cut with a butter knife (you know that's what people mostly use to cut reunion desserts), and they stick very well to fondant or frosting.  The fondant also can seem tricky when cut with a too-dull instrument, but I thought it did very well AND tasted good.  IMHO, it was a nice compliment to the buttercream frosting.  All that's left of this cake is the photo, and I look forward to making another one.  Renee . . . please come back, and I promise we won't cover your smooth frosting with fondant.  Without you, there will be no smooth frosting--that's a promise!  We'll even decorate the cake board the next time!