The epic tale of Holly and the Safari Cake (Part 3)

Wow. This has been an adventure. After a total of three batches, my homemade fondant, although fairly tasty, was impossible to rolld out and transfer onto the cake. I tore open the box of crappy tasting stuff and marveled at the texture. Perhaps I should have played with the store bought stuff before trying to make my own? Wow. That makes sense.

I took my (wonderful) whipped ganache, my 9+ cakes, the rolled fondant, and a knife, and went to work. My layers weren't quite thick enough to achieve the level of "topsy-turvy-ness" that I wanted, but I trudged through. I put the filling between the layers, cut a hole in the top layer of each tier for the next tier to rest in, cut the top of each tier at an angle, and covered each tier in fondant. I colored the fondant with food coloring for the top and bottom tiers. This stuff wore me out... it was an ab workout just kneading this stuff... and at the moment, I dont' even know where my abs are located anymore. I worked my way up the cake, with two very talkative children yapping nonstop, constructing edible creations out of my unusable chocolate flavored fondant, and occasionally saying "Do you think this might not be the best cake in the whole world?". Boy, was it ugly.

After a lot of work (but not as much work as my three batches of homemade edible playdough took), I had the entire cake constructed in its rough form. I did a crappy job of smoothing the fondant, there were cracks and some ridges where it rolled under itself. I decided to stick it in the fridge and do something else for a while.

When I came back, I had newfound energy. Boy, was it ugly. I smoothed out the creases and patched some places. I did this by letting my fingers warm the fondant and rubbing it smooth... and used a little shortening on my fingers to keep it from sticking. It seemed to work. The cake was no longer completely ugly, but it was very bare.

In the spirit of using store bought crap, I tore open my box of natural colored fondant (light brown, dark brown, pink, and black). I started with the cheetah print at the top, which seemed simplest. Using various circles from around the kitchen, I made the spots and applied them with a tiny bit of water and body heat. Things were looking up! By the time I was the the zebra stripes, I was on a roll. The rest was fun stuff. Jeff suggested that I border the tiers in orange instead of chocolate brown to give it some life... which I did. And, at 12:30am, with a disasterous kitchen and a party which starts in less than 12 hours, I am finished with the masterpiece. Sure, the fondant may not be yummy, but I know the inside will be since I have been eating the scraps all day.