A Trip To Sugarland

With a daughter who echews anything resembling "girly" stuff (except for getting her nails painted), birthdays mean choosing between "Star Wars", "Transformers", "Bey Blades" and "Cars". After a brief flirtation with the Smurfs, "Cars 2" won out.

Occasionally, we will watch "Cake Boss" on television. I am constantly amazed at both the creativity and engineering involved in constructing these monuments of sugary delight. She can't believe that the finished products are actually eatable. Ariana kept asking if we could go visit him and ask him to make her cake this year. I kept saying that he is too far away, to busy, too..... too. I decided to try to make the cake myself given my innocent enthusiasm in thinking, "I can do this!"

Luckily for me, William-Sonoma developed a line of character utensils for people just like me. Last year, we bought the pancake and cookie molds for StarWars. The recipe that come with each of the kits is excellent - I now use the pancake recipe all the time. This year, they came out with a Cars 2 cakelet pan. Eight little cakes representing various characters, incredibly detailed and surprisingly easy to use.

What was not so easy was the fondant. For the trial run, I used store bought fondant that comes in a big brick. I had a great time creating the characters - I felt like I was in art class with a bunch of clay. Mixing the colors, molding pieces, cutting just right - a couple hours of creativity was a nice break from the usual chores.

The cake part, not surprisingly, came out great. A simple vanilla cake, rich tasting - yummy. The fondant was another story. The cakes lost some of the detail once I added the fondant as it was too thick to get into every crevice. "Like rubber", said my supportive but honest husband. "Don't serve this to your guests", he warned. Well, did he expect me to make my own???? I had to agree, the store bought stuff tasted horrible.

So, the search began for a fondant recipe. Some of them just seemed too complicated for a total fondant novice like myself. I finally found one that used marshmallows as the main ingredient. "How hard could that be?", I thought. This from someone who once broke a wooden spoon while stirring up a batch of marshmallow rice crispy treats. I mixed as much as I could and then put it in the fridge to "set". Set it did - like a brick. Chipping it out of the bowl and into the garbage, I tried again, adding a little more water than the recipe called for.

Much better, though the details of each car was lost. Eight cars and a 15" round cake later, my shoulders and arms we sore from all the rolling and molding, but it still looked pretty good for a first attempt.