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Fondant and buttercream are two popular choices for cake decorations. Fondant, a malleable paste made from sugar and water, can be rolled out and used to cover the tops of cakes for a smooth finish or molded into intricate decorations. Buttercream is a whipped, fluffy frosting made from butter and sugar. It can be spread onto cakes and piped into decorations.
When it comes to custom cakes, deciding which is better, fondant vs. buttercream, comes down to the look you want to achieve for your cake and how you intend to use the frosting on your cake.
What Is Buttercream?
Buttercream is a fluffy, sweet frosting made by combining butter and sugar. Various types of buttercream are used for frosting and cake decorating, including American, Italian, and Swiss meringue buttercream.
The butter in buttercream gives it its signature fluffy consistency. This consistency gives cakes decorated with buttercream their well-known appearance, character, and taste.
What Is Fondant?
Fondant is great for a special celebration cake because the material is easy to shape and mold. Fondant is extraordinarily pliable, with a dough-like texture. It can be rolled flat and draped over cakes to achieve a flawlessly smooth finish or used like edible sculpting putty to create decorative embellishments on top of a cake.
Fondant is made with confectioners’ sugar, gelatin, and glucose, a type of sugar. The process of making fondant involves combining gelatin with water and heating until the gelatin dissolves. Glucose is then added to the gelatin mixture and cooled. This glucose mixture is then added to confectioners’ sugar until the resulting mixture forms a pliable dough that can be rolled or sculpted into decorations and shapes.
Is Buttercream or Fondant Better?
The answer to which is better, buttercream or fondant, for your cake depends on what you want from a custom cake.
Fondant is great when you want detailed decorations for your cake. When rolled out, fondant delivers a smooth, professional-looking surface to a decorated cake. When molded, fondant can be shaped into desired decorations and designs for cakes. While fondant is edible, some people don’t care for the super-sweet flavor that it can give to cakes.
Buttercream has a richer, creamier taste that offers a depth of flavor you can’t get with fondant. While buttercream can’t be rolled out like fondant can, it can be piped onto cakes in decorative designs and patterns. Writing messages with piped buttercream is also easier than creating messages using shaped fondant.
Due to the consistency of buttercream, buttercream-decorated cakes won’t have the ultra-smooth finish of a cake draped and shaped with fondant. Also, since buttercream is a semi-solid mixture, it can get smudged or disturbed if the cake isn’t handled correctly.
Recognizing the differences between fondant and buttercream, some professional cake decorators combine both to create their desired results. Fondant serves as the exterior and decoration, while a layer of buttercream underneath the fondant creates a depth of flavor, especially when the buttercream is sandwiched between the layers of the cake.
Create Your Custom Cake Design with Frost Artisan Bakery
Whether you choose to create a custom cake with buttercream or fondant, you can be sure that your custom cake from Frost Artisan Bakery will be spectacular. Call or stop in to place your custom cake order.
