Does that fondant stuff that specialty cake bakers put on their creations actually taste good? I’ve heard that it’s not all that great. Do they put a good tasting frosting underneath it so you can actually enjoy eating the cake? If not, why the hell do they put it on there if it tastes like crap?
I think some of them try to make up for the fondant with a very tasty cake and rich layer fillings.
Fondant is kinda meh tasting, in my opinion. I wouldn’t say it tastes like crap, but it sure doesn’t have what frosting has. But they put it on because it looks pretty. And people buy it because it looks pretty and, right now, it’s trendy. Because fondant is rolled and cut and laid, much like play-doh, you can do all sorts of really neat things with fondant that you can’t with a piping bag and frosting or icing.
It’s just a matter of fashion, really. The fashion right now in cakes is smooth and silky , as opposed to the intentionally roughed up creamy look of years gone by.
I think the fashion in elegant wedding cakes has always been silky - its just that the Food Network has made the look accessible and popular.
I don’t like fondant, which is basically sugar and glycerin. You can add almond extract or rosewater or something to make it taste good. My kids like it, though - hardened sugar, what not to like.
I put buttercream under mine.
It’s sugar, water, shortening, sometimes gelatin sometimes glycerin. The cake you use needs to be a bit heavy duty. No light genoise or sponge type cakes, unless you don’t care that they droop. So along with a mouthful of sugar you have a hefty piece of cake along with it. You can flavor it, but it is still just sugar. In between the cake and fondant should be a thin layer of something to fasten it, possibly jam, possibly buttercream (though that might be bad. I forget.) Not enough to make a huge difference. If you can get the cake and fastener to taste good, you can just strip off the fondant, it doesn’t have a great mouthfeel to it (at least to me, anyway.)
As to why you would use it, simply because it looks great. Shiny, smooth and lustrous. Feels “silky” to the touch. Personally I hate the stuff, but it makes decorating a cake a simple job (as opposed to buttercream/whipped cream, etc…)
I’ve never tasted tasty fondant. It’s mostly for how it looks, not how it tastes. For taste, buttercream is the way to go, IMO.
This is really part of it as well. Its EASY - especially if you buy pre-made fondant (homemade fondant is sort of a pain to make). Roll it out, drape it over cake. Cut out shapes - affix with water. Attach a little ribbon. Pretty much anyone can make a fantastic looking cake really quickly.
My wedding cake was buttercream. If I get married again, my wedding cake will be buttercream. But then, I almost think that everything should have buttercream on it… I wouldn’t miss a buttercream opportunity just because fondant looks nifty. 
Most people, I believe, put frosting under the fondant, both for flavor and so that the fondant has something to stick to. I know I do when I make wedding cakes.
Montgomery, I am only an amateur baker, but I would be afraid of the jam sliiiiiiiding down the cake if I put it on the vertical surfaces! I’ll use it as filling in between the layers of cake, but I wouldn’t put it under the fondant. I think the fondant would be inclined to slide, too.
I don’t particularly like the flavor or texture of fondant (for eating, anyway), but it sure makes the cake look pretty. And it lets you do some creative things with the cake, if you want – one of the wedding cakes I did last summer was white cake (boring! but what the bride wanted) with chocolate filling and buttercream frosting, covered with white fondant. But the buttercream underneath the fondant was bright red, since that was one of their wedding colors. Lots of fun when people saw them slice into it. And with fondant, you can make metallic colors pretty easily, using luster dust.
From the baking perspective, I find it a LOT easier to put fondant on than to get the buttercream even close to as smooth, and I don’t have to worry about anything brushing up against it and ruining my smoothing job.
My wedding cake was cheesecake, though, so no fondant for me – cheesecake must be refrigerated, and fondant must not be (it sweats). I’ll take cheesecake over fondant any day, though!
mmm…sweaty wedding cake
I enjoyed a cookbook that described fondant as “technically edible.” My feelings exactly. It’s horric stuff. Too sweet and too bitter at the same time.
I don’t like the scuplted look either, but that’s another thing.
Not the goopy kind of jam, the thick, almost solid raspberry/apricot jam that bakers use. If you spread it in a thin enough layer on the cake, it will act like glue allowing you to place the fondant quite easily. Just make sure you get the placement right or you’ll tear up your cake, or mess up your fondant, but good.
Rolled buttercream is a great alternative to that nasty fondant stuff 
My SIL’s wedding cake had rolled buttercreme icing festooned with gumpaste seashells. For those of you who’ve tasted fondant, the texture’s similar, but the taste is definitely buttercream.
And why can’t they do a die cast cake …an industrial software molded cake with a sheathed buttercream frosting silkened in a smooth, and/or textured negative mold. I envision a software “lathe” turning out molded silicon matching dies to any equation and cake design. Fill with cake batter, bake, and “unpeel”. A Donald Duck, quarter in the slot, dangerously hot, plastic, die cast figure of my childhood technology and amusement. The buttercream frothing and frosting with a pressurized offset sheathing mold. Bake your obloid and frost it deliciously.
“silicone” not silicon.
Giant cake molds, huh? Wonderful concept - sorta like Mr Cotta’s dream popcorn buttering device (each kernel is dipped in butter before delivering to the mouth).
Unfortunately, there are so many things wrong with the idea that all I can suggest is that you watch an episode or two of FoodNetwork’s “Ace of Cakes”. Many years ago I did cake sculpting and having a lathe to shape cakes (not the baking molds) would have been my dream!
You know, thinking it through a bit more, if you were meaning to create sheet cake molds to order and they were only one layer, it does make sense. Good on you!
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard the word “fondant” in my life, and yet somehow, within the span of about 3 hours, I came across it twice in completely different contexts.
Sorry, pointless posts, but weird.
Yea, that’s what I was going for. Sort of like the technology they use to make movie masks and what not. I’m thinking of one of those vacuum form, plastic, mold making machines like they have on mythbusters. But with a modified plastic or silicone material that can withstand baking temperatures. If you had a positive model of the cake you wanted you could literally make a matching cake pan to any size and shape quickly and easily, and hopefully, cheaply, if the idea were to have any chance of success. Similarly, you could make a slightly larger or offset, plastic sheath mold with detail and texture to sheath and “cast” the frosting on the cake. It could be a boon to artistic cake makers.
Well, they have those, of course. Flat ones, too. But as soon as you make something easy, you make it cheap. Bridezilla doesn’t want the same old molded cake that every trailer park hussy can whip up for her big day, she wants it to be unique…as long as it’s just like everyone else’s. Only better.