Yes, I do fondant cakes. Gum paste, modeling chocolate, and RKT. I'm fully aware that this sort of "decorating" is all the rage right now, thanks to TV. I unfortunately happened to hop on the cake wagon in the middle of all this alternative medium madness, but my true love is BAKING. However, when it comes down to it, I can tell you that I, for one, would never order one of these rage cakes. Fondant? Tastes bad. Modeling chocolate? Tastes like tootsie rolls (blech), gum paste? call a dentist. RKT? who wants to eat a mouthful of dry RKT covered with fondant. What ever happened to regular cake? yummy moist cake slathered with delicious buttercream? Am I the only person out there that feels this way?

Have you tried MMF? It tastes good. I also make Jello MMF and is great tasting. As for RKT.. I say yuck too. I like to make Fruity pebble treats instead. THey taste great and kids and adults go crazy for them. You can also make caramel fondant (which I am currently experimenting with).

But I still love doing buttercream as well. Most (almost all) of my cakes are buttercream, so I enjoy getting to work with fondant and stuff.

no, you're not the only one that feels that way! I love a good, old fashioned buttercream iced cake! But I can see why people use fondant... especially since I'm taking a beginner's cake decorating class and can't ice a cake and make it smooth to save my life! But I'm practicing! I often think, "it would be so much easier if I could slap some fondant on top of this!" But I guess fondant comes with its own problems.

I think it depends on what is most important- looks and dramatic effect or tasty cake. You can have both to some degree. The people I make my cakes for only want bc but then they have grown up on bc and that is what they are used to. Some folks feel the same way about fondant because of what they grew up with and I imagine a mouthful of crisco and butter and powered sugar might be nasty to them. I like a fresh mmf and my personal fave is that fluffy sugar shock buttercream. The kid bday cakes that I've made that have rkt are a major hit with the kids. Kids just love the rkt!

I'm totally agree with you Cakegroove. I just like regular sponge cake with meringue buttercream. But I do love the look of fondant covered cake. I haven't work a lot with RKT but I wouldn't want to eat a big piece of RKT covered in fondant either

I think there is definitely a market out there for simplified, old fashioned cake. If you market yourself to that style, I think you will establish a customer base... Look up Cake Love. Warren Brown has several store fronts and he doesn't do decorating like the current trend.

I absolutely agree. I very rarely cover a cake in fondant unless I am asked to do. Sitting at my son's b-day party watching everyone pick off the crap and throw it away after I spent hours kneading, rolling, and smoothing it makes me sick. I refuse to use RKT. I hate watching these shows where they make massive, beautiful creations that are 10% cake. Nope, not me. I like my cake and everything on it edible.

I actually love eating the rice krspy treats off the cakes. My cousins were eyeing them and waiting for me to cut into it. I was pleasantly surprised that they were still fresh enough to be tasty.

I'm old school enough that fondant has only been used widely in a fraction of the years I've decorated. I'm a buttercream gal, and have quite a nice little pocket full of twists and flavors to compliment my cakes.

RKT? I have used them--I've got a Poe cake in my gallery (I think). The books are made of fondant covered RKT and Poe is fondant. I had a customer who watches all the shows and just had to try those things out.

She's never ordered one again, and it's not a reflection on the taste of my fondant.. it was SO yummy.. but she said it was good, but butter cream is great!

Use Choco-pan Fondant it tastes like heaven!

Kinda agree with you; struggled for a long time to not fall into the fondant madness. But finally accept the fact that if we want to please the one we bake a cake for... need to be flexible and go with the trend. However, there's always a way to keep your cakes tasting good: homemade jams to flavor fillings, carve small cakes instead of using RKT, let air dry fondant decorations instead of gumpaste and bake fresh every time using the best ingredients available. I'm now trying sugar veil cutouts with cricut looking forward to sub fondant decorations (sugar veil is thin up to millimeters and very subtle tasting.
Still love baking and experimenting with new recipes and flavors. Whenever asked, I let people know they can have beautiful cake yet wonderful tasting just by putting aside strong colors and using more imagination instead of thick fondant covered art creations!

I must be odd in extreme, but I like fondant(Choco-pan) over Mike McCarey's buttercream recipe. It's tasty and beautiful. The only problem is that it has to be kept cool. I LOVE rtk also. It tastes great with modeling chocolate or Choco-pan over it. I love all the fanciful impressive cakes . Just buttercream is too limiting to me because I don't have the skills to make it look pretty. I like the taste of sugar veil too. Am I a oddball or what?

I love RKT, especially with BC frosting..yum

I think too, that a lot of the younger generation don't even know how to smooth a cake properly that is buttercream only. They are very talented with fondant and see no reason to learn the art of buttercream. You can get a smooth surface with fondant without much work, IMO. I know I don't make sure the buttercream is perfectly smooth when I know I am putting fondant on top of it. I just let the smoother do the work! Fondant is much easier and faster to do, but that is just my opinion!

I'm a baker, too. I'd rather have a gourmet Tiramisu with real mascarpone cheese than a fondant covered birthday cake... mmmmm. To be fair, I think the White Almond Sour Cream cake that's a really popular base cake on Cake Central is actually amazingly tasty and sooo much better than a regular cake mix cake. And fondant, no matter how good it tastes, just doesn't compliment a cake. There's something off-putting about eating a smooth, spongey cake with decadent buttercream and then chewing away at a piece of fondant. Even Fondarific, which is the best I've tasted, takes away from the cake eating experience. I was a florist for a bit back in the day. I compare a cake decorator getting a fondant covered cake for their birthday to a florist getting a dozen roses for Valentine's Day. And that's why I'm marrying my fiance. He buys me kitchen equipment instead of flowers and takes me out for steak and creme brulee on my birthday

I live in Scotland and we dont go in for all BC iced cakes we BC and then royal or fondant icing which I would rather have. I like the taste of it some are flavoured too. IMO fondant is not the easy way to decorate cakes you cant just smooth over any mistakes you have to work hard to make sure you don't rip it on application and make sure what you mould doesn't crack and is placed on the right place. Its fun to work with too

I prefer to use/eat ABC or SMBC but am forcing myself to learn fondant. I finally am able to get silky smooth BC but w/o air conditioning, MMF is my summer friend.

Now I have to get back to basics and start working on flowers. I never do flowers...

Cakegroove, I am totally with you on this! I was just reading a cake book by.... either the person who did The Cake Bible, or Sylvia Weinstock (I forget who). She said she would never eat fondant, nor would she ever serve it to her guests. I laughed, as I feel the same way! I think the cakes are gorgeous when they're fondant covered,but it's a far cry from the deliscious honest to goodness buttercream frosting.

I love RKT. I also like the taste of fondant. I like royal icing on my decorated sugar cookies too.

I look at it like this: The decorations made out of gumpaste, modelling chocolate or whatever are there for aesthetics, and although they are edible, they are really not there to be eaten.

The cake that you put it all on however, should absolutely be delicious. I'm really fussy about cake, so the cake underneath all the decoration has to be amazing - I would never make a recipe that I thought was sub-par or just ordinary thinking "Oh well, I'll just decorate it and make it LOOK nice." As for fondant on cakes, some like it, some don't. It does give a fantastic 'clean' finish, which I love. On my cakes I use a good layer of ganache (which IS delicious) and cover that with a very THIN layer of fondant (4mm) - when the fondant is that thin it usually doesn't bother people who don't like it.

I only use buttercream as a base for my cakes and fondant for decor elements only. I recently took a buttercream 101 class to better my piping skills and it was fun, but nervewracking. I tend to get really nervous with a piping bag! I'd love to do filigree work but it's still difficult for me...that's why I love decorating with fondant. Cutting out the fondant decor is fun and you can get very creative without sacrificing taste. And when I need a highly colored cake, I use very little colored icing. I layer on buttercream (cooling and hardening between layers) and then top the last layer with the color. You don't get that food coloring taste that you can get with a cake that's got solid colored buttercream frosting. So in regard to this topic yes...you can have a pretty cake that tastes delicious too.

I have to admit, at the risk of being ridiculed, that I would actually choose a huge hunk of RKT over the best piece of cake any day of the week. Those things are my FAVORITE food! I'm a candy person though, so I do prefer those types of things. I do not, however, think that fondant in general compliments cake. It's an odd match. I like the two separately, and I probably eat as much fondant as I put on my cake while I'm decorating, but I don't care for them together.

cake groove-
I thought this post was too funny because I just wrote one about two days ago on the same topic-and I totally agree with you! While I don't undermine the awesomeness of fondant and all that you mentioned, I'm more of a butter cream fan. I read a response that said that the younger cake decorators don't learn BC, but I was the opposite. I started when I was 19 and I guess I thought in steps-like first, learn BC, second, learn fondant. I'm really glad I learned how to properly smooth and pipe with BC because it's made fondant so much easier to work with. They are both great, but around here there is nothing like a beautifully piped buttercream cake I enjoy not having to "disrobe" the cake before eating it LOLOL

I'm just glad I'm not alone in my frustration The last two cakes I've made I've done BC really smooth so that it has a fondant appearance, but not the texture-I'm finding this a good alternative. Some times I'll get people requesting fondant only because they don't think BC can be as smooth!

I too prefer making a cake without the "bells and whistles", I like the challenge of carving and I do like working with fondant. The occasional "rage" cake is o.k but I like simple.