Chocolate Butter Cake with Rolled Fondant (and Happy Birthday Long!)

My project for this weekend was to create a cake with sugar flowers and rolled fondant, all from scratch.

I have a base recipe for chocolate cake that I got again from Sarah Phillips (the Ultimate Chocolate Cake recipe). For the frosting, I made the White Chocolate Ganache. Preparing those are kind of routine for me already so it was easier. The challenge was creating the fondant to cover the cake, and to be made as flowers. I followed a recipe for rolled fondant that uses gelatin envelope on the recipe. I prepared this the night before because rolled fondants are best to use after letting it rest for 24hours. So I cooked the gelatin and kneaded it together with the powdered sugar, corn syrup and vanilla. When it got to a clay dough-like consistency, I wrapped it airtight and then placed it in a ziplock then refrigerated it. When I was going to use it already the next day, it was rock hard so I had to thaw it to a kneading consistency. However, it never got to the original clay dough texture. It was more of gummy which cannot be thinned. I was so disappointed, well who wouldn't be after some 7 cups of powdered sugar gone to waste. I was frustrated because I had to throw all of the rolled fondant that I created the night before. I then switched to another recipe which does not use any gelatin. Just butter, corn syrup and powdered sugar. With my trustee hand mixer, I started to cream together the butter and corn syrup, and then I sifted the powdered sugar on that creamed mixture one cup at a time. My new fondant had the clay dough like consistency already after 6 cups. And there it was! I had a very good rolled fondant, very pliable and was rolled to around 1/4 in thick for covering. I rolled it to the diameter that should cover all my cake, placed it over my cake and smoothened it. It turned out very good, no creases and folds in the bottom. After covering the cake, I started decorating the it with sugar flowers that I made the other night. I had created 3 daffodils as center pieces, then I had different sizes of apple blossoms in sky blue, mauve and pink. I created a lot of flowers that it covered the entire cake and still have some leftovers. Here's my final fondant cake, all edible. It was heart breaking to cut it but cakes are supposed to be eaten, right? :)