Almost Like Fondant

My niece is getting married in October and we have been feverishly coming up with ideas, menu's, favor ideas...well, anything you can think of, really.  We're working with a normal person's budget so we have to be very creative.  

<when I say normal person's budget, I simply mean that I don't know anyone that has ever spent $25K on a wedding. I'm not saying that no one does, it's just that most of the folks I know don't have that kind of money to spend on one day of partying>.  

Not only that, I know that we don't have to spend that kind of money because we are creative!  

First things first...she wants to make her own cake. This is kind of scary because we have never really made wedding cakes. Oh sure, we've made cupcakes and cakes for kids parties, and we've made petit fours but never wedding cake. In fact, I've never really made a cake over 4 layers that ever turned out perfectly. Needless to say, this is making me nervous.

So, I set out the other day thinking about the whole fondant thing. Whether to make my own since storebought isn't so tasty...or should I try something else? I went in search of different icing ideas and saw one that used regular store bought icing and I thought, 'why not?'.

Here's the idea. You melt a can (is it a can?) of frosting in the microwave for about 15 seconds. Stir then do it again until it's very thin. Then, all you do is pour the icing over the cake. You let is set up for a few minutes, then pour again - this time the icing will be slightly thicker. Once it dries completely it looks like fondant. This is my first attempt.  lol

Okay, so I couldn't find my cardboard cake rounds so I put it on a plate.  Which was a dumb move on my part because it made the cake not straight up and down - which would have been way prettier.  <sigh>  

Anyway, I poured the icing over the cake and down the sides. This is not so bad if you place your cake on a cooling rack over a pan first. This way any frosting that falls from the cake can be gathered up and used again.  

It's a little bumpy but it's not bad.  I don't know that we will use this process for the cake she finally chooses but it was fun to try. This week I'm going to try another one...just to see if I can get it a little better.  :)

Did you make your own wedding cake? How did it turn out?