Dora the Explorer cake - first time with fondant

All the previous posts of making Dora and her buddies with fondant is probably going to make sense now. It all comes together, finally!

This is the first time I was using fondant on cake and it was to celebrate a lovely 2 year old's birthday, who's really fond of Dora.

The cake that I made was a pineapple chocolate chip cake and I then filled and frosted it with dark chocolate ganache (lightly flavored with caramel and pineapple).

The cake was then covered with a green fondant representing the forest that Dora usually hangs out at with her friends - Boots, map, backpack and Swiper. Anyways,  some of the other things that I added the day before the party was the palm tree, stars (I added wiggly/googly eyes for some fun), tall mountain (made out of cocoa crispies) and river under the mountain. Everything was homemade including the marshmallow fondant that I got from this website (http://whatscookingamerica.net/). For some reason, I made two batches of this fondant on different days and the second time I made it, it just didn't work. Anyway, I'll leave this for a different post!

 Day before pictures -

Day of the party -

 

I have to thank my sister for helping me make the stars at the last minute and for helping with the cleaning (yes cleaning, I could go on and on about the mess that I make in the kitchen during baking, in this case I rather not talk about it) And I also have to thank my husband for rolling out the marshmallow fondant eventhough he didn't really want to. Didn't leave him a choice! This was probably the most difficult part as the fondant tears or sticks to the countertop. If you use store bought fondant, it's much better and does not drive you nuts like the marshmallow fondant. But again, it was my first time and hopefully, with practice it'll get better.