Decorating

Today was decorating day for the 60th birthday cake... sadly it wasn't very good weather for it - it was cool, but far too wet. But I think it turned out ok for my second cake decorating attempt with fondant ever. Started the day, however, watching "Madagascar" and flipping through baking books to find a recipe for the housewarming party tomorrow. I still haven't decided! Using my blue coloured icing and my new rolling pin and mat, I rolled out the icing to 3mm thick or there about and then... it ripped as I tried to pull it up. Take two, and I succeeded thanks to a little more cornflour. I covered the cake, with only a few cracks (covered by decoration later). I then tried to smooth it out and luckily my husband was around when I complained about the smoothers sticking to the cake, because he suggested using baking paper so I could run the smoothers over with a bit more pressure. Perfect. But I'm not a perfectionist, so the cake is not absolutely smooth. Instead of continuing, I spent the afternoon buying a housewarming gift, buying more fondant and driving up to Pie in the Sky with hubby to pick up a late lunch (yum, beef burgundy pie). We lazed around watching "Cars" before I continued on my cake decorating adventure. This wasn't too hard - I covered the board in fondant, created a white bow and ribbon, added the plastic number 60 my mother had picked up for me, put on a candle on and dusted edible glitter around the edge. Only about two hours of work for that bit. It's certainly not perfect, but it's definitely a step up from my last fondant cake! Looking forward to icing with either ganache and butter cream for cakes later this month and definitely looking forward to baking again tomorrow morning.

p.s. not putting recipes up here that aren't mine, but happy to point you in the right direction for them if you like!