"I absolutely DO NOT want fondant!"

Probably 90% of my brides begin their consultation with this statement. And trust me, I understand the sentiment. I have also had some amazingly terrible fondant in my days. I have had some that I am certain may have actually been white Play-doh.

Fondant (French for "melting") has been around for a while, but the trend of covering all formal cakes in fondant really came to a head in the height of the television cake craze. Suddenly, everyone was seeing these beautiful cakes being created by wonderful artists unlike anything they'd ever seen. And so it started to become ordered more and more and more.

For some reason, however, there reached a point where everyone decided that since they were only seeing these beautiful cakes on television, and not tasting them, fondant must, therefore, taste awful. After all, it just looks like clay!

I am here to tell you, my dear friends, "oh, contraire!". Fondant comes in many, many varieties. Actually, you may be most familiar with fondant in a different form from your childhood: the filling inside Cadbury eggs! Fondant can be marshmallow flavored, white chocolate flavored, mocha flavored, and Savannah based fondant producer, Fondarific, even makes fondant in flavors like chocolate cherry, melon, and peppermint!

Fondant can also come in many differing levels of quality. McDonald's makes burgers, but would you characterize every hamburger based on what you received at McDonald's? No! You know that a burger can be made to be a work of culinary genius!

When I talk to my brides more about what scares them about fondant, the truth comes out:

"Well, one time my Aunt Mary made a cake for my cousin Larry's bar mitzvah and it tasted awful".

Fair enough.

Aunt Mary probably wasn't using the kind of fondant that the pros use.

And beyond taste, just look at the difference between the aesthetic that fondant provides! If you look at some of the world's finest cake designers, you will often find one common thread: they are masters of fondant decorations.

Now, this isn't to say that fondant and beautiful work are mutually exclusive. There are some AMAZING cake decorators and designers out there who are, quite simply, buttercream charmers. But it can be a somewhat limited medium.

Also, consider the way that a wedding cake is cut. Wilton has a great guide to cutting a wedding cake which will illustrate to you that a large, formal cake is cut into 2"x1" rectangles. What does this mean? This means that only a very small percentage of of the slices of cake at your wedding will have a piece of fondant on them. If Cousin Larry still isn't adventurous enough to try a new gourmet treat, then there will only be a little sliver of fondant for him to eat around.

And so, I am often surprised when a brides comes to me with a request for no fondant. Why compromise the aesthetic of your wedding cake based on what you heard around the water cooler?

After all, you only get one wedding day (or sometimes two or four), and the photos of the cake are photos that will hang around for the rest of your life.