It's just not worth it

I consider myself more of a pastry chef than I actually am since I watch lots of The Food Network. After watching a few too many episodes of "Food Network Challenge," I decided I would give fondant a try. How hard could it be? Those pasty chefs on Food Network make it look terribly easy . . . easy enough that an idiot like me could do it. Right?

I mixed it up, rolled it out . . . it tore. So I kneaded it up again, rolled it out . . . it tore again. So decided maybe I was working with too much at once, and separated a smaller ball. Kneaded again, rolled it out again . . . it tore again. This went on and on for some time and my back was really starting to seize up between all the kneading, rolling, and temper tantrums. I finally got it rolled out nicely without tearing it, wrapped it losely around my rolling pin to move it to the cake, and somehow got it laid over the cake. It was at this point that I realized how un-flat my cake was. I didn't realize that I should have put on more frosting to level the cake out more, I thought the only purpose of the frosting was to keep the fondant from sliding off. Live and learn.

I smoothed out the fondant as best I could over my lumpy cake. I then colored my remaining fondant pink to use for cut out hearts. Clearly, I should have rolled the fondant thinner because the hearts just look like big fat things stuck to the sides and top. Again, live and learn.

As the kids came home from school, and when Lane got up, they all commented on how lovely the cake was. It isn't lovely, and they were probably just buttering me up to make sure they got some. We had some after dinner, and SURPRISE, SURPRISE! No one liked the fondant. Everyone had a taste, and then peeled it off, eating just the cake. At least that made me feel better. I have never really cared for fondant, but it looks so pretty and I wanted to try it out. So now that's one thing I can cross off my list. Life is too short to do back-breaking work on something no one likes anyway. I'll stick with normal, fluffy frosting.

Now I need a massage.