Pilgrims Cake

Maddy and I have been obsessed with Cake Challenge and Cake Boss lately. I used to hate getting up on Monday mornings but now that the new Cake Challenge is on each Sunday night - we get up an hour earlier and watch it together on Tivo while we get ready for the day. I have to admit, Monday mornings are now one of my favorite times of the week (and watching 'Dallas' reruns as a family on Monday nights :)) Anyway we decided to give it a go for ourselves, did a bit of research online and were really thrilled with our first effort for Thanksgiving!

Some lessons we learned...

* Fondant cracks and dries really quickly - zap it in the microwave to make it easier to work with but for no longer than 5 seconds or so since it becomes really gooey and sticky if it's heated for any longer than that.
* Wax paper stops fondant from sticking to the table but makes it difficult to roll it out. Try flour, icing sugar or confectioner's sugar instead and you can wash it off with water afterwards.
* Keep your equipment on a separate counter so that you can grab whatever you need quickly and still have a large work surface. We were drowning in 'stuff' and really struggled to stay organized since we had no idea just how much space we would need!
* Making a fondant cake takes a lot longer than you may think (2-3 hours for this one but we were very slow). That said, the good news is that the cake itself is good for about 3 days if refrigerated and you can always freeze them too so you don't have to make the cake on the actual day.
* Enjoy - we thought it was a lot of fun!!