I am tired of all empasis on fondant. I have made fondant to use for a bow. That was kind of fun. But no way am I going to Frost a cake with fondant. Call me old fashioned but I will never change my view on buttercream. I feel cake decorating in this country started with buttercream and I love the taste and I love piping with it. I know crisco is not available in some countries so fondant is all the have. But I learned with buttercream and it is what I love. Anyone else agree with me? When american cake decorating first started out it was mostly buttercream techniques and enjoyed it more. I have almost every Issue plus almost every Mailbox news issue and all Wilton yearbooks. And the old issues are my favorites, because it was not all about fondant.
Buttercream is my favorite but I'll do fondant too .. I really like working with the MMF ... but I know what you mean about the buttercream .. I do love working with it too 
I agree. I do not see myself doing a lot of fondant cakes. They can be very pretty but it is a lot of work and expense for something that most people do not like to eat!
I can see using it for accents on a cake more than covering it all in fondant. When I look at cakes online or in magazines my first thought is usually, "could I do that in buttercream?".
I also have a 'thing' about using much in the way of inedible decorations. I want my cakes to be practical as well as tasty and pretty.
Cindy
I prefer BC over fondant.....Yes fondant is beautiful but BC is more cost effective. My coworkers prefer BC over fondant and have made it a point to share this with me. MC
I love the look of MMF. It is so smooth & shinny. I prefer cream cheese icing over BC. But I still like BC too. I have the hardest time smoothing BC! That's why I like it when someone wants MMF on their cake too. I don't have to worry w/ smoothing the BC as much.
I like buttercream too. I put out a post the other day actually asking why fondant was so popular that is all you seem to see in the books just in case I was missing something lol! And I think it is while beautiful tastes blech and I would prefer a cake people actually enjoy eating rather than pick apart to remove the fondant. Some people seem to think it is ok and eat it, but the couple times I worked with it, people approached it more as a space anomaly lol! Granted my cakes were very simplistic and quite unskilled in execution, so I wasnt quite sure if it was the fondant or whether the cake itself just looked that bad lol! People just sort of looked at me like "are we supposed to eat this stuff or just look at it?". The look on the faces of some were quite interesting when they dug in their fork and got to the fondant lol! General surveys showed most of the fondant remained on the cake plates. I also like cream cheese. Anything with buttercream, cream cheese, chocolate or whipping cream imho should qualify a basic food group.
I am curious tho just to try out the mmf and another type of premade fondant that was discussed in that thread. If either are remotely palatable, I may reconsider, but in building my repertoire, I do not intend to focus on fondant at all. BC will be my medium of preference, fondant if I do like any of those varieties will be an occasional fallback mainly if I have a design that would be difficult to reproduce in BC .
I do like marzipan, and even tho I was not a skilled decorator at the time (and even tho I am still not a skilled decorator lol!) I did a quite nice cassata covered with marzipan for the holidays. But I would only do it on a small cake-it becomes quite expensive to do anything larger. At least when I told people it was marzipan most people knew what that was and most ate it. Altho most people were only used to seeing marzipan in candies so I actually got a question how I rolled out the little candies so flat to cover my cake lol! Northern Ohio isnt exactly the culinary mecca of the world lol!
I like buttercream but I agree with Tina, I find it difficult to smooth. I like working with fondant. I will be trying MMF soon.
Joe
Buttercreme is my favorite for taste...
Hubby told me the other day, that my cakes don't even need icing...just put some filling in between and that's all...he said the flavor of my cakes are that good... I still like the buttercreme after it's been on the cake for a day or so, and all the flavorings incorporate..,,mmmmmm..
But fondant... I just love the look of a fondant covered cake....there's just something about it... I don't know what it is... but it's just got this look about it...
I'm still working with faux fondant...and i'll be trying rolled buttercreme next...
Well, that's all I have to say...
cakegal
Great point bostonterrierlady. I am new to cake decorating and have wondered why one would put so much work into a cake only to have it stripped in order to eat it. I love to scrapbook and I imagine making a fondant cake for an occassion is like giving someone a scrapbook and they ooh-and-ahhh over the book and then rip the pictures out! 
I guess I am on the opposite end of things. While I love to work with bc and royal, I am passionate about MMF. I think it is so fun to work with and it has endless possibilities!! I do like to make cakes with bc and fondant accents the best because I love the taste of bc. But I find that lots of people love MMF. I actually had one lady ask me how to make that because she like it so much. I don't see a lot of people throw away the fondant when I am at parties. Now if there were only Wilton Fondant available to use and no MMF I would probably never make fondant cakes because I think it taste awful and I would not want someone to walk away from one of my cakes with that taste in their mouth.
I guess we all are different in our likes and dislikes but if you are judging fondant strictly on Wilton I would encourage you to play around a little with MMF and see if you like it any better.
I have to confess... I'm a fondant girl too!I love and adore working with it! I'll always love BC for the taste, and all my cakes get a large helping of BC before the fondant goes on! That's kind of the best of both worlds.
ivanabacowboy,
I took a double take when I saw the word cassata in your post.
I'm from a sicilian family and it's always around at Easter. Sometimes Christmas. My uncle was a baker so for years he provided the cassatas for the family and weddings and such. He was the ony one around that used the maripan and fruit. Other bakers do cassata but none like him. I started playing around with making one a few years back and though it's not just like his, my family was wide eyed and excited to have it around again at holidays. I love the marzipan! Do you buy it or make it? It isn't very hard to make. Everytime I have it, it takes me back to being a kid.
Rose
Hi Rose! I thought marzipan is what made it a true "Italian" cassata as opposed to an Americanized-interpretation? I could be wrong. Most people I ask what a cassata is think the American version-a sponge cake with strawberry filling and tons of whipped cream. That is not an Italian cassata. To my recollection a true cassata uses a sponge cake, liqueur (typically Amaretto I believe), ricotta, pistachio or pine nuts (forget which I used but I want to say pine nuts?), covered with marzipan, and garnished with candied fruit (including citron to be really authentic, which I do not care for in the least so I seem to recall I used candied cherries, candied orange peel, candied pineapple and pine nuts to garnish). Am I correct?
I think they were absolutely to die for! The only difficulty was trying not to eat too much of the marzipan so I would have enough to finish the cake lol! Unfortunately I lost the recipe I made in a move. 
I have used both purchased and homemade marzipan. The cassatas I did with homemade.
I have used the premade on other stuff. My specialty in general is miniature pastries and desserts, which work well with marzipan since they are small and it is costly lol so a little goes a long way.
Do you care to share your marzipan recipe? If I am recalling correctly (it was a few years ago I made them), it is just nuts and sugar (trick being to get the almonds very finely ground). And I know that also some of the European stuff I have seen and some of the cookbooks I have use marzipan under fondant. I would never waste a good marzipan covering it with fondant lol!
ivanabacowboy,
As far as the exact ingredients to a cassata, I believe the basic is the same but depending on "where your family was from" little changes apply.
My uncle's was very close to what you explain. He used a certain pan, which I need to find and purchase, he also made his own syrup to "sponge" the cake. I don't have his exact recipe but it was a liqueur.
The ricotto filling he made had mini chocolate chips like in a canoli. The sides were covered in marzipan and the top was frosted smooth and garished with candied fruit. Again dried fruit that he soaked. After he closed the bakery I searched high and wide for an Italian Bakery that made it and even they didn't know what it was. We call it a
"Cassata Sicilian".
During this time, I was really starting to get into making cakes. I had just learned about an item called marzipan and tasted a piece. The second I put it in my mouth, my eyes widen. I said "Oh My Gorsh! 
, that's that stuff on Uncle Joes cakes!!!!!!" I was so excited, I can't even tell you! When I was a kid, I remember taking all the pieces from my family who didn't like it. I just LOVED it. I was determined to make that cake. And so my journey begins.
My first attempt was okay and is getting better, I'll never get it to be just like his but I don't think I did too bad basing it on memory. I never cared for the fruit as far as to eat so I just left them off and added extra scrolls. I'll TRY to post a pic. The only one I took a picture of was my first one. Let me know if it's what you though of. Again, I left the fruit off the top and it's a little smaller because I didn't have the proper pan.
I just used a basic recipe starting with almond paste to make the marzipan. It seemed much easier than making the paste than making the marzipan.
You know, discussing this makes me wonder why I never just called my uncle or made a visit and get all these unknowns answered 
. I think my Italian pride wants me to figure it out on my own. I htink I will be contacting him soon. Thanks for bringing this back up in my mind. sorry to ramble, just excited that someone else finally actually knows what it is! Sorry for those that have never experience one!
Rose
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%