Minnie Mouse Cake, and fondant nightmares

Put fondant together with Hong Kong’s humidity and you get a nightmare.

Before going to Phuket, I made a Minnie Mouse cake for my cousin’s baby daughter’s third birthday. I used Renshaw fondant to make a bow and ears about a week in advance so that the pieces had enough time to dry. And well, this happened the day before I had to finish the cake.

The bow completely fell apart as it dried. Great.

With less than 48 hours left, I had to go for Plan B. I stacked and frosted the cake as usual, and the night before the cake was picked up, I made a brand new bow. This time, I was careful to use less corn flour to roll out the fondant in case it dried out like the last one.

More importantly, instead of relying on the fondant to hold its own shape, I rolled the strips around some marshmallows which held them up nicely. It didn’t look as nice from above with the marshmallow inside, but I wasn’t taking any chances!

I’d heard horror stories about refrigerating fondant, but considering the humidity, I had to go for the lesser of two evils. And lo and behold, the bow held beautifully after 24 hours in the fridge, there as no sweating on the fondant or anything. Phew!

I absolutely loved putting the little Oreo Minnie Mouses (Mice?) together on the side of the cake, an ingenious idea I picked up from Pinterest. I used oversized heart sprinkles to make the little bows, which is so easy and adorable. This was the 4th cake I’ve baked so far, and I haven’t yet mastered a perfectly smooth finish to the frosting, so it was a great way to hide imperfections. I finished the cake with a halo of matching pink and white sprinkles.

Hopefully this is the last I see of fondant for a while.