Half-Covered Stripes

Just a quick note (hopefully) with a few hints on how to create a seamless join when you want to have more than one colour of fondant covering your cake, with no overlaps.

1. Start by calculating the size fondant you need to cover the top half of the cake (in my case, the blue). I wanted the blue to come halfway down the sides of the cake so my fondant needed to be 7" (the top of the cake) + 2.25" (the cake was 4.5" high) x 2 (for each side) = 11.5" diameter.

2. Use your usual method of moistening your cake so that the fondant sticks to it, but only moisten half way down the sides.

3. Roll a piece of fondant and cut a circle of the right size(ish) using your measuring bands so you know how thick it is. I cut around a 12" cake pan. Lay it on the cake making sure it’s even all the way around. Smooth down as normal.

4. No matter how acurately you cut, you’ll end up with fondant further down the cake than half way. And if you’re anything like me, it’ll be a big ragged mess. You’re now going to cut the excess fondant away with a perfectly straight line all the way around the cake. Yes you are.

5. All of my cake instructions involve hunting around your kitchen or further afield for something just exactly right, and this is no exception! You need to find something that is exactly (or near enough that you don’t care) half the height of your cake. In my case one of my measuring cups was exactly 2.25" high. Place the cup up against the side of your cake and lay something with a flat edge on top. I used a metal ruler, but a bench scraper would probably work, or even a straight metal spatula.

6. Using the straight edge as a guide, use a very sharp knife to cut through the fondant. You’ll need to use a knife with a long blade that will rest flat on the straight edge.

Use the length of the knife blade, not just the tip to cut through the fondant. If you have a turntable, you can turn it as you continue to cut and move your straight edge and support as you go.

7. You should now have a perfectly straight edge to your blue fondant!

8. Now to start on the stripes. Roll out your two colours of fondant using the measuring bands on your rolling pin. You want both colours to be exactly the same thickness. If you don’t have them, use two wooden skewers on either side of your fondant as you roll to help get a uniform thickness. Or just eyeball it!

I used the strip cutter that came with my Tappits to cut out perfectly straight strips of fondant that were all the same width. Genius! Thanks to Isabelle from The Designer Cake Company for this idea.

9. Leave the strips to dry for five minutes or so, so that they are less likely to get misshapen as you handle them. Cut lengths that are just longer than half the height of the cake – in my case 2.5" lenghts.

I put my cake in the fridge as I was cutting the strips so that the buttercream would be nice and firm to attach the strips to and not smoosh about.

10. You need to elevate your cake slightly now so that you’ll be able to cut perfectly even edges on your strips later. You can’t see the edge of my cake as it was covered with Captain America’s belt, but I had a perfect edge! Typical that it was covered!

I sat my cake on an upturned cereal bowl using squares of non-slip shelf liner to make sure it didn’t move about.

11. Decide where the front of your cake will be and add the first strip in the centre. Don’t worry that it hangs below the bottom of the cake, just make sure that it butts up against the blue fondant above.

12. Add your second colour strip to the left AND the right and continue to add them to the left AND the right so that your final strip will be at the back. If you lay strips in one direction only, your final strip will be at the front.

13. I used the back of a knife to push the strips into the place and ensure they were perfectly straight as I went along.

14. I was realistic that my final strip was not going to fit and that I would have to cut a wider or thinner strip to fill the gap. I didn’t worry about this as I knew it would be at the back of the cake. It was more important to me to have the strips at the front be perfectly even than measure the circumferance of the cake and divide it by the number of strips. Pphhhffftt. No thank you. In the event, the final strip fitted perfectly by lucky fluke!

15. Now take that very sharp knife again and, using the cake board as a guide, cut the excess length from your strips. Lay the knife flat and use the lenth of the blade to ensure a clean cut. And you’re done! Use a fondant smoother to gently press everything in place (be careful not to dislodge your strips), stand back and marvel at the fact that you pulled it off when the thought of doing it had kept you awake at night.

Let me know if you have any questions.