Finally, the last part of the birthday cake saga is here! The photos have been sat around for almost a week waiting for me to do something with them, but to be honest I've been being a bit hard on myself about them as the cake didn't turn out, looks-wise, as I would have hoped. So I'd been toying with not putting anything up, but then I need to learn and appreciate my mistakes in order to move on and not give up at the first hurdle. After all this whole project is in preparation for my Brother's wedding cake so it's better to understand why things didn't go to plan now and work on them, in order to be ready for November... So, here, with a little bit of heartache, is the final part in the first birthday cake story!

I'd had such a good time with the marzipanning, I foolishly expected the fondant icing to go just as smoothly.... But after a manic week at work, and a weekend of solid working, maybe a Sunday evening wasn't the best time to tackle the cake, but as Mum was coming down to pick it up on the Monday night, I needed to get the cake iced. Things when fine to start with, the colour was kneaded into the fondant and I got a lovely shade of blue, that sort of reminded me of Blue-Tak.. hehehe!

But it worked, and I was very pleased with how the colour came out. It was the next part where things went a bit pear-shaped. Hand on my heart, I thought that the icing was thick enough, but when I lifted it onto the cake it tore on one side and I had to patch it up. This probably wouldn't have been to bad on a white iced cake, but as we were in blue, it was sort of a little noticable. However, after some smoothing the patch merged and matched up pretty well. The main problem was where it had torn on the edge of the cake the fondant had thinned out and the marizpan and the cake edge stood out quite prominently... Not a happy bunny! It took all the Other Half's effort to get me to stand back and leave the cake alone as as I kept trying to fix it, it was thinning out more, and I was at risk of ruining everything. In the end, as the fondat dried the colour fixed itself and any joins were not obvious, but the thin edge was.

When Mum came down to pick the cake up, she could tell I wasn't happy with my efforts, but as she said its the first time and I've got plenty of time to practice, and I could learn from this and the next one would be even better; plus this cake was really about how it tasted rather than looks... and she was about to cover the cake in 69 candles!! Anyway, the final verdict about the cake from the pub was 'Fantastic!', even the harshest of critics in there enjoyed it! The cake was just right according to Mum, just the right level of moistness and fruit, without being sticky or stodgey; and my brother has given it the thumbs up as the base for the fruit tier of the wedding cake... Now just to get that icing sorted and get a sponge base mix for testing!

Right for the final time on this cake...

What You'll Need

About 700g Fondant Icing- I've used Squires Ready to Roll Fondant sugar paste in white, based upon Squire's guidelines for an 8" round cake.

Food Colouring in Blue - I used a mix of Wisteria and Bluebell from Squires

1 tablespoon of Apricot Conserve

Icing Sugar - to dust your worksurface and rolling pin to prevent the fondant sticking

Fondant Polisher

Fondant Spacers

Rolling Pin

Pallette Knife

Pastry Brush

What You'll Need to Do

To colour the fondant, take a small piece of the fondant and flatten it out using you hands to knead it so it is more plyable

Using a cocktail stick, dab the food colour onto the flattened out fondant, making sure that it is spread around the surface of the fondant

Next you need to knead the fondant until the colour is well blended

At first the fondant will look a relatively dark shade of blue, but don't be alarmed, we're going to knead this into the remaining fondant and it will even out into a paler shade

Take the remaining uncoloured fondant, and flatten it out, knead it so it is nice and plyable

Now take the blue fondant and place in the centre of the white fondant, and knead the two together so that that blue fondant works its way through, until it is thoroughly blended and we have a uniform colour through out

Next we need to roll out the fondant as we did with the marzipan, so then...

Using the spacers, roll out the kneaded and coloured fondant into a large circle that will cover the cake. Sprinkle your rolling pin and work surface with icing sugar to help prevent the fondant sticking

Before I heated the apricot glaze over a low heat, but this time I place a teaspoon in a small glass that I stood in a bowl of boiled water, this was just enough to heat the glaze so that it is just right for spreading over the marzipan

Place the fondnat over the top of the cake, and move it into place so that the top and all sides will be covered

Either using your hand or a fondant polisher, and apply a little pressure to smooth the fondant on the top of the cake, and then down the sides, smoothing in any folds

Finally, trim off any excess fondant from around the base of the cake using a pallette knife

Decorate as you wish...

We had a bash at writing with icing, using a piping bag and nozzle with Royal Icing. I think mine was a bit too runny, so that's another go next time and I'll let you know how I get on. In the meantime...

Stand back and admire you handy work, or get all annoyed and panicky like I did! I think the key is not to fiddle with it too much as you'll just cause the fondant to dry too quickly and crack! 

So here's a couple of photos of the final cake, I'm still not happy with how it turned out in terms of looks, but at least it tasted good!

It must have worked out ok, as Mum has asked for another cake for the end of the month, next time its a sponge cake, so stay tuned, I'll be putting it together over the next week....