How to Frost a Cake to Look Like Fondant

Fool your guests into thinking you slaved over fondant next time you bake a cake.

The look of a cake decorated with fondant is something many people appreciate; however, the taste of fondant is not something everyone enjoys. When you want to decorate a cake using fondant but everyone in your household groans about having to eat fondant icing, try a different tactic: create a faux-fondant cake with butter-cream frosting that you can make to look like fondant with a special technique. Does this Spark an idea?

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Butter-cream frosting
Cake-decorating spatula
Paper towel with no design
Fondant smoother
Lazy Susan or turntable

Instructions

- 1
  
  Place your cake on a turntable or Lazy Susan; this makes decorating the cake easier, as you can turn it to reach all sides.
- 2
  
  Lather your cake with a thick layer of butter-cream frosting. Start at the top and work your way down the sides of the cake with your cake-decorating spatula.
- 3
  
  Smooth the frosting with the cake spatula so that the frosting on the top of the cake is perfectly even. Smooth the sides of the cake with the fondant smoother. Hold the smoother in place with one hand and turn the Lazy Susan or turntable that your cake is sitting on to smooth the sides.
- 4
  
  Contour the edges of the cake with the fondant smoother or your cake spatula. You can make the edges sharp or you can round them to suit your particular style.
- 5
  
  Allow your cake to sit for approximately 15 minutes or until the butter cream hardens and is no longer sticky. Place a paper towel with no designs along the side of your cake and over the top of the cake and smooth the frosting by rubbing the outside of the paper towel with the fondant smoother.
- 6
  
  Move the paper towel around the cake and repeat Step 5 until the entire cake is smoothed. The result is a butter-cream-frosted cake that looks like a fondant-frosted cake.