I watch these bakers on TV working with the stuff and hey, it’s absolutely fantastic as an edible decoration material, but something tells me that when the time comes to EAT the cake, you really dont’ want to be sucking down those thick sheets of sugar. Blech.
I love the amazing things great cake artists can do, but I have a hard time believing that the cake itself is all that great when so much effort is going into how it looks.
(I’m feeling very warm towards cake these days, there is a cake vendor at my local farmers market and it’s totally worth going 180 from my eating plan - it’s jaw-dropping. Nirvana. It’s what you dream cake could be but really never is. If you live in the LA area it’s Dolce Monachelli’s and they do ship. They are located in Orange. I don’t know what Farmer’s markets they go to besides mine in North Hollywood, but if you see them I recommend the Italian butter rum. I fought the guy about tasting it because I HATE HATE HATE rum cakes…but this thing has no rum flavor at all. It’s just… perfection.)
I hate fondant. It tastes like suck. And I hate pretty much every cake on those tv shows like cake boss and the ultimate cake down or whatever it’s called. They all look cartoony and eccentric like Dr. Seuss dumps. (Which is not to say that the style is a bad one. It’s fine for what it is but not all the damn time.)
Despite the fact that it’s mostly sugar, it tastes bad. One of my cookbooks describes fondant as “technically edible” which is really the most you can say for it.
That said, more skillful bakers use molding chocolate, and sometimes rolled marzipan, to acheive a similar result that’s actually tasty. Extremely skilled bakers can achieve the smooth, molded look with frosting, as in these exmples.
Fondant can be good. My girlfriend is a cake decorator, and she makes her own. It’s mostly marshmallow and icing sugar with some shortening. When she was in school, she found the pre-made stuff inedible (despite lukewarm assurances to the contrary from the instructors), as with the icing they used.
Yeah, the stuff they use to decorate cakes tastes terrible. That said, there are other candy substances that are also technically known as fondant–when I dip chocolates, the candy I make for mint patties or fruit creams (or cherry cordials) is also called fondant, and it’s just a soft candy, quite yummy.
I cannot remember which show it was that I was watching, but the cake dude was talking about how he always put a layer of yummy frosting between the cake and the rolled fondant because no one eats the fondant.
Fondant is mostly for show. Technically you can eat it, but as others have already said, its texture and overly-sugary taste leaves a lot to be desired. You can get around it by icing the cake with something yummy then draping the fondant over it, but expect people to still pick it off.
There’s marshmallow fondant – made from melted-down store-bought marshmallows with extra sugar, IIRC, and paste food color – which seems to be mostly used by at-home decorators. I’ve never tried it, but anything is an improvement over standard fondant!
Marzipan is traditionally used for fruitcake or any similar “rich” type of fruit-studded cake. I’m not saying you couldn’t use it on other cake, but I’ve never seen it done.
My SIL’s wedding cake was made with rolled buttercream, which is basically buttercream icing stiffened with enough confectioners sugar to roll out and drape like fondant. The drawback to it is that it’s very finicky with temperature – too hot and the sugar will “bloom”; too cold and it’ll be like stone when you attempt to cut into it. But yes, the flavor is definitely much more pleasing!
Perhaps unsurprisingly enough, it tastes like stiffened Peep guts. It also doesn’t really stick so unless you use real frosting as cement, it will peel right off the cake in a very unappetizing way.
Fondant is vile. It’s meant to be peeled off the cake and set aside, rather than eaten, IME. We tried some when we went to our cake baker for our wedding. We tasted it and gave each other “the yucky look” and knew we didn’t want it. It’s gross stuff.
I am also in Noho (I assume you mean Arts District?) it’s Saturday mornings until 1pm right below Chandler next to the post office - 1 block west of Lank. It’s pretty new, they’ve only been doing it since October. They have a lot of artisans and artisan food vendors (hence the cakes), but they are kind of irritatingly thin on actual produce, oddly enough. If it weren’t for the cakes I couldn’t be bothered at this point - I like farmers markets for the produce, not the jewelry and tacos.
Even worse is that there used to be a few other cake shows where the people didn’t rely do heavily on fondant and the cakes were gorgeous. But I guess they were lacking the New Jersey personalities or something so instead we get crap looking cakes made of Play-doh and Rice Krispy treats.
Guess I’m in the minority here. One of the best pieces of cake I’ve ever had was covered in fondant. Might’ve also been the only cake I’ve ever had that had fondant on it, though.
Fondant tastes like sugar-laced styrofoam on a good encounter, and like spoiled fruit on a bad one.
Marzipan tastes like the rotted disease-ridden innards of dead almonds.
Ganache is a semi-solid chocolate that can taste anywhere from utter nirvana to wax, depending on the makeup.
Buttercream is pretty hard to mess up, but as stated upthread, it takes a steady hand and lots of experience to make it achieve that powdery smooth look.
Honestly, I’d rather have a slightly messier cake that doesn’t have significant portions of it which taste like ass, and that’s what I did for my own wedding.
I plan and coordinate approximately 30 or so weddings each year with my assistant. Seriously…the fondant is supposed to be removed from the cake before it is sliced and served. It is for decoration only (mainly because it is pretty nasty stuff). It also seems to be disappearing from view with most of the weddings I have done over the past two years. I think we have only had 1 cake in two years that was done with fondant. Seems like the whole fondant fad has gone the way of chocolate fountains in this part of the country.
:nodding: I’ve heard a couple of cake decorators with at-home businesses say that. One of them went back to using regular fondant, but she now rolls it very, very thin before draping so the texture isn’t so off-putting. She says people still pick it off, which doesn’t surprise me.
