Corsette Cake

Last month, a friend asked me if I could make a corsette cake for a Bachelorette Party she was helping organize.  After a little bit of research, I thought I could figure it out, so I agreed to take on the challenge.  She sent me this picture from Pinterest, but asked if I could make it in brighter colors like teal and hot pink.  Sounded awesome!

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My first step was, of course, to figure out how to get the cake the shape I needed it.  I baked a large rectangular cake in the biggest pan I had, and found some pyrex bowls that were the right size for the bosoms at Bed Bath and Beyond.  I used those to bake two bowl-shaped cakes, and then when they had cooled, I leveled everything off.

To get the right shape on the bottom, I just used a ruler to measure the center of the bottom of the cake, measured an inch and a half on each side, and then measured approximately three inches up the side of each cake.  I placed toothpicks at each of those points, and just made two solid diagonal cuts on each side to shape the bottom.

I placed the round cakes so that the edges of the round cakes touched both the top and outer edges of the rectangular cake.  As you can see, there was a little gap between the round cakes, but that's how you want it!  I then cut the corners of the rectangular cake and rounded up the top to follow the general curves of the round cake.  I was terrified about cutting out the waist, but in a flash of brilliance, I grabbed a large paper place and used the side of that to cut around.  I then flipped the piece of cake I had cut off over and used that as a templace on the opposite side so that both sides were event.  And then, everything got a nice, thick layer of buttercream. 

Now, I used a buttercream recipe that was supposed to crust so that I could go back and smooth it out after I got the base layer down.  But alas, my frosting never crusted.  It ended up being okay, though.  Even though my buttercream wasn't perfectly smooth, I was careful to get large lumps out, so it worked out okay.  

After regrigerating over night, the next step was to get the fondant base layer down.  I'm definitely not a fondant expert, but I do make my own marshmallow fondant using this recipe.  I do this just because I think it tastes better than store-bought fondant.  That said, I tend to have much better luck actually working with pre-made fondant, so it's really a personal choice based on your preferences for taste and your ability to be patient and and not get frustrated.  

After mixing the fondant, I set some aside to color for the details, and then tinted most of it with the teal food coloring.  I then started working the fondant with my hands, adding a lot more powdered sugar to try to reduce the stickiness factor.  I completely covered my entire counter with powdered sugar, and rolled out what I hoped was a thick enough piece to cover the entire cake.  And I immediately started having problems with the fondant sticking to the surface on which I was rolling it out.  

After a few attempts, I findally managed to get a big enough piece rolled out and covered the cake.  I made it smoothly over about 90%, and then disaster struck on the left bosom!  My first instinct was to try to cut around just that piece of fondant, roll out another piece of fondant, and then attempt to just recover that one spot.  But after a couple of failed attempts to roll out another piece of fondant the right size, I thought I'd be able to decorate over it to cover up the worst of it.  

The last part is the decorating.  This is the part that offers the most pop, but it actually took the least amount of time.  I colored some of the fondant black and used a Wilton Fondant Mold to create the black zig zags for the bodice.  I then colored some buttercream with the hot pink and used the large open-star tip in a pastry bag to make the roses around the bosom and the bottom.  I conveniently chose the crack in the left bosom as the placement for the roses and just approximated that line on the right side as well.  As you can see, once all the decorating was done, you couldn't really tell that there were any issues with the fondant.  

As a last step, I colored the last portion of the buttercream teal and used that to create a border around the bottom of the cake to hide all the little cracks and imperfections where the cake meets the board.

Here's a better picture of the finished cake.  Not too shabby for a first attempt!