Defying Gravity: An Adventure in Cake

SARAH:

“So where around here can we get our hands on some fondant?”
It was the out-of-the-blue question that started it all — and a valid one, considering the remote area of the state we live in — asked by my ten year old son as we drove toward home on a Wednesday evening. Without hesitation I answered, “I think I might know someone who can help us.”  

Encouraged by my answer, my son told me all about the baking show he had watched at a friend’s house that day, of chocolate covered candies, fondant, and a cake that defied gravity. I was intrigued and more than a little intimidated. My cakes were tasty and creative flavor-wise, but I had never tried to build such a complicated cake structure. However, I  was excited that my son was taking an interest in something I enjoy, baking and cooking, and I knew just who to ask for help.

Later on that same evening I messaged Kate and proposed a baking party to make a gravity defying cake. She didn’t laugh at me. Well, she did laugh at me — she is Kate — but also agreed to help in the same breath. That’s one of the things I like about Kate. Kate is a bold baker, willing to explore the boundaries of time, space, and flavor to create the perfect cake or confection.

KATE:  

Bahahahaha!  Ahem. I’d say I only seem bold because I don’t know any better.  I’m willing to try just about anything, and I’ve been very lucky that for the most part, it’s worked.  

For this particular cake though, I had some good help from my engineer husband. I knew that if anyone could figure out how to make impossible-seeming cakes possible, it’d be him.  He’s been very patient with me and my interest in all things baking. Great British Baking Show? Watch it. Zumbo’s Just Desserts? Yep. Cupcake Wars? Check.  Nailed it? (I so want to be on that show!!!) All the Food Network baking competition stuff? Before we cut the cable, you betcha! I kept walking away from the TV really wanting to try some of that stuff.  

I asked my husband what he thought…he said, “You’ll never know if you don’t try!” That has been my baking motto ever since.

SARAH:

I do think that “I want to do all the things” could be our motto, too. It covers the wide variety of food, literary references, baked goods, and random fandomry we’ll throw into this blog.

But back to the cake. After much discussion Kate and I agreed on a design, cake flavor (a sturdy spice) and when we would put it all together. My son and I showed up on Kate’s doorstep around 1pm on the following Sunday for what we had began to call “Bake Club”.

KATE:

I’d decided to bake the cakes the day before so we could focus on the assembly and decoration of the cake.  I knew this could take way longer than anyone (including myself) anticipated. I wasn’t wrong. We had a few…mishaps in making the Swiss meringue buttercream, but once we got that going, it went reasonably smoothly.  

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SARAH:

Should we talk about our mishaps or save them for another time? I think the latter, perhaps in a “what have we learned?” post in the near future. We won’t be sugar-coating our oopsies here, but we will be sugar-coating a lot of baked goods.

So, Kate was not wrong. It took us a long time to build the cake. Six and a half hours long. Most of the time was spent waiting for frosting to chill, making the fondant, and creating the stabilizer for the cup.

What surprised me the most about this cake was how much I liked the fondant. Typically, your store-bought fondant is useful for creating a look, but I would never have called it tasty. The homemade fondant was tasty. Care to share your secrets for making a tastier fondant, Kate?  I think the world needs to know.

KATE:

No secret, really!  It’s marshmallow fondant, which I made using a recipe from blogger Liz Marek at Sugar Geek Show.  She has some really great, crazy simple recipes for things like fondant and modeling chocolate — another recipe I had to look up for this cake we made.

So. Marshmallow fondant is made with marshmallows (duh) and a ton of powdered sugar. That means that instead of tasting artificial and sugary, it tastes like really sweet marshmallows. Frankly, I’m not a fan of any type of fondant, but I am a big fan of all the lovely things it can do to and for a cake.

This cake also forced me to explore modeling chocolate for the first time. It was scary, which seems silly in hindsight, but working with a new substance — not knowing if you’re going to handle it correctly, not knowing if you’ve made it correctly, how to fix things that go wrong — is no small thing! I’m no longer afraid of it. I’m actually intrigued to see what we can do with it in the future.

One thing though: I think I’ll buy my modeling chocolate in the future. It wasn’t terribly hard to make, but the amount of kneading it needed (ha!) made my hands and wrists rather unhappy. (I’ve been cursed with carpal tunnel, as well as tendinitis in my hands/fingers to round out the fun.) That said, it wasn’t a deal breaker, and since we live in the back end of beyond (no cooking stores for miles and miles), homemade was the way to go.

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Anyhoo, after discovering we had a small issue with our crispy rice cereal treats not keeping shape around the form my husband had made for us, we decided to “cheat” by using an actual cup. It was our first try at this, so who cares?

I got the chocolate around the dowel, with the help of Sarah and her son. Then, we discovered that M&Ms don’t really like to stick to modeling chocolate. I’ll be honest, I dropped the ball on this one — I never looked up how to attach candy to modeling chocolate. We fudged and futzed and managed to get a good amount to stick, and then stuck more to the cake using leftover buttercream. It was a really warm day, so I worried the buttercream would be too melty to do much good, but it worked (huzzah!).

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So Sarah, would you make this again (and again)? I would! It’s pretty easy to do, and now that I’ve done it once, I can explore more and tweak things here and there to create an easier, smoother process.

SARAH:

I would totally make a gravity defying cake again. I agree with you, Kate, we could tweak it in so many ways to wow the crowd with design and still have great flavor. Another plus for this cake in my book is that it got my son involved. Now I know he won’t want to bake with me every time, but it was a cool thing to have him be a part of this cake adventure and I hope it inspires him to try bold projects in the kitchen and otherwise.