Before and After... A Birthday Cake

Back in October, I got Eliana's birthday supplies, including a Wilton Crown cake pan. Now, I've never made a shaped cake before, and I haven't even really made cake since Ellie was born, since I'm a big fan of the cupcakes. This year, though, I gave it a try. Here's the before:

(I even cut a cardboard platter and covered it in foil to hold the cake! I was proud of myself for that one...)

And here's the after...

I'm pretty pleased with how the final cake turned out, but for a while there I was really concerned! I made my first try at quick pour fondant, and it was definitely a FAIL! It started to pour fine, but cooled and hardened much quicker than I expected, and ended up being a sticky, lumpy mess on the top of the cake! ACK! Fortunately, it was still malleable enough that I could kind of push it across the cake and cut around the edges and then make a batch of color flow frosting to fill over top and hide it. Whew! It was a close one. Now we'll see how bad it is when I actually cut into the cake tomorrow morning! Ha!