Seeking Fondant Advice
I'm making a wedding cake for an October wedding and have been going through a few trial runs. Yesterday I think I perfected the cake recipe, and for the first time covered the cake in fondant that I purchased at a cake decorating store (Wilton brand, I think).
The fondant looks lovely, but tastes dreadful. It's so bad that if I were to use it, I would feel the need to circulate around as the wedding guests are eating the cake telling them to peel off the fondant.
Which brings me to my question. Will it be worth my while (I don't have a great deal of time on my hands) to make my own fondant? Or, can anyone recommend a brand available by mail order that tastes decent. I understand that, by nature, fondant is not the most delicious thing in the world, I'm just hoping for something that won't detract from the cake it's covering.
kjhart
Aug 03, 2003 02:04PM
I made my own wedding cake last March (link to my post about the process) and had some issues with fondant. The first batch of premade fondant I bought was awful, and I was scared I'd have to use it on my wedding cake, but after trying several other packages (from a different store) I realized that the first batch was probably rancid. Moral of the story is, buy from a store with a lot of turnaround. I bought all my supplies from New York Cake and Baking (www.nycake.com), and the fondant (I used a 5 lb bag of Regalice I think, and 3 1 lb boxes of Wilton) was fresh. That being said, it still didn't taste fantastic. After some research, I discovered candy flavoring oils. Lorann oils (also available at NY cake) are concentrated enough that they don't change the texture of the fondant, and they come in a wide variety of flavors. I flavored mine with almond (I think a flavor like watermelon might be just a little too weird). Finally, I put a really yummy buttercream on the cake under the fondant, and I didn't try for the thinnest layer possible, but a reasonably normal buttercream layer (mine was Grand Marnier). Some guests still ate around the fondant, but some people loved it, and asked for the recipe.
Link: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/...
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Thanks for the info Caitlin. Reading your earlier post was one of the things that encouraged me to offer to make this cake.
I think you may be right about the fondant being rancid -- it had a pronounced vegetable oil taste, together with the overwhelming sweetness you get from pounds of sugar.
I will take your suggestion and order from New York Cake (I'm in Phoenix, and there's only one baking supply place in town). I also plan to experiment with the Lorann oils. The cake I'm making is a raspberry champagne cream cake, with a framboise buttercream. Lorann makes oils in champagne and raspberry flavor, so I think I'll test them both.
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Caitlin-- I never saw that post or the picture-- your cake is beautiful! I love the Wedgwood color scheme. And from the description, it sounds like it tasted as incredible as it looked!
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Many places actually remove the fondant from wedding cake before actually serving it.
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I have made wedding cakes using homemade rolled fondant. Rancidity was obviously not the issue, but even homemade doesn't taste great.
The conventional wisdom for wedding cakes is that appearance is everything, taste takes a distant second. This is changing, but Wilton's recipe for 'buttercream' still calls for Crisco, confectioner's sugar and imitation vanilla, which is clear and won't destroy the whiteness of the frosting.
Rolled fondant is made from confectioner's sugar, cornstarch and glucose or glycerine, plus flavorings.
So it is going to taste mostly sweet. I second the suggestion to check out flavoring oils, and to put something really delicious under the fondant. But I don't think the improvement in flavor from making your own fondant will be worth the effort.
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I love the look of fondant, but if it's going to taste awful, I don't think it's worth it. Have you considered covering your cake in rolled marzipan? This could potentially be really expensive, and I don't think marzipan is quite as pliable and easy to work with as fondant, but it's so delicious!
I'm sure you know about the Cake Bible, which has fondant and marzipan recipes (even a recipe for pistachio marzipan for almond-haters), and probably has some good advice or sources on fondant.
Best of luck making your cake!
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I totally felt the same way last year when I made a fondant-covered wedding cake for a friend, as far as wanting to tell all the guests to peel off the fondant, or asking the caterers to do it first in the kitchen.
In the end, though, I second Caitlin's advice to flavor the fondant and use a lot of yummy frosting underneath. I did both (almond extract in the fondant, raspberry mousseline buttercream from the Cake Bible liberally frosted underneath, lots of fudgy chocolate cake)--and the fondant ended up not bothersome at all.
one caution: despite its taste, resiste the urge to roll the fondant overly thin unless you are a master cake froster, b/c all the imperfections will show right through.
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Kjhart: I'd like to suggest that you decorate the cake with "White Chocolate Fondant". The fondant has a much nicer taste, cuts better and compliments your other cake flavors. The brand that's superior to others i've utilized follows: "Sweet Inspirations", White Chocolate Fondant. Tel: 1-800-207-2750 the internet address: cakevisions.com, i'll attempt a link below, but sometimes i'm not successfull. The cake when decorated with the fondont actually looks, softer, warmer and more elegent then with other fondants. Good Luck.
Link: http://cakevisions.com/WCFondant1.htm
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Thanks for this info! I am generally horrified by the taste and texture of rolled fondant. However, I just did a tasting for a bride and groom with marzipan as an alternative and they actually chose the fondant. I have seen this choice for the look of the pure white fondant, but these two actually liked the flavor! I have seen guests scarf down the fondant like it is some special treat apart from the cake. Nonehtless, I am going to give this product a try on my own initiative.
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Thank you very much for the white chocolate fondant suggestion. I ordered some from Sweet Inspirations (Cal-Java International)and I think it will fit the bill.
The white chocalate fondant is not exactly white; rather, it's the creamy color of white chocolate. But, with the addition of liquid whitener (looks just like paint, but is sold at cake decorating stores) I was able to get it reasonably white -- though not as white as regular fondant.
I did a little tasting with the bride, offering her the whitened white chocolate fondant and regular fondant (plain and one with champagne flavoring and one with raspberry flavoring). Taste-wise, the white chocolate fondant was far superior to the other fondants. I wouldn't say it was delicious, but it will do. Another nice thing about the white chocolate fondant, is that it may be rolled out thinner than regular fondant, so it's less likely to interfere with the delicious cake underneath.
I will report back when the cake has been completed.
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