Congrats on your Retirement Dave & Joanne!
Dave & Joanne are two of the nicest, most positive coworkers that I've ever had the pleasure of working with. We were all happy for them when they decided to retire (but selfishly sad as well) and I jumped at the chance to make a cake to help celebrate.
I decided to go with a cute clock/retirement theme and work in the company logo & color scheme. This was my first time doing a cake for a larger group of people (most of the time it's smaller birthday party cakes for me) so I did a half sheet cake for the bottom (two layers) and then topped it with an 8 inch round for the clock portion.
Wow is a half sheet hard to cover. Trying to estimate the amount of fondant to use, rolling it out the correct size (without being too thin) and then trying to actually get it over the cake without messing it up... very challenging. I was not successful in getting the cake covered without messing up the fondant a bit, but the good news is that I was able to smooth out the messed up parts fairly easily.
As you can see by my messy table... my cutting board was not large enough to roll out the fondant for the half sheet cake. So... I cleaned my table very well, scattered some powdered sugar and voila... a work surface big enough for gigantor cakes!
So, things I learned during this cake:
- Most imperfections can be covered... does your fondant not go all the way to the bottom of the cake in one spot? Add a ribbon or ball border... now you have a cute/fancy edging and no messy mistake. Have a wrinkle or imperfection in the fondant? Using powdered sugar or cornstarch, gently rub the wrinkle and it will appear much less noticeable.
- Bows can be a pain in the butt and should not be rushed.
- One of those plastic roll-up mats that measure your fondant as you roll it out may be a helpful tool... I'm going to have to check in to one of those.
This was a fun cake to do... can't wait for the next project!
