Baseball Cake (Fondant Experiment)

Is it just me or do you think you could make beautiful cakes like the ones on the food network too...if only you had gone to culinary school instead of college...and you didn't work full time...alas, I decided to venture into the world of fondant anyway.
This is probably the best coconut cake I have had - but we are here to talk about fondant first and foremost.
For my first attempt I choose an easy shape - a baseball. I made the fondant several days ahead - a no-fail recipe from Peggy Weaver

http://whatscookingamerica.net/PegW/Fondant.htm
Sorry I can't get the link to work.


I baked the cake in a round pyrex casserole dish, cooled it overnight, then seperated the cake, filled it with cocounut filling, and iced it with a thin layer of buttercream. This is what is recommended on every website and I also saw it done on the foodnetwork - so it must be true - ice with butter cream first before applying fondant.
I rolled out the fondant on cornnstarch as directed - but it stuck. So I ended up rolling it out on wax paper and then transfering it to the cake - which was on a plate that was just the right size. I let the fondant hang down and adheared it to the cake then trimed the bottom. It was easier to work with than I thought, but my cake still had minor imperfections. I smoothed over blemished in the surface with wet fingers and that worked well. As for the strings - I intened to buy that spray can of red icing (betty crocker) and draw them on. However, a new product is on the market (also from Betty Crocker)- a form of food spraypaint - and it comes in the same can as the spray icing - only smaller. So I accidently purchased that. It worked out to be serendipity becuase I just cut the laces out of rolled fondant and spray painted them red. The whole project worked out much better than I had anticipated - which doesn't happen very often.
The cake tasted great I must say - I didn't eat the fondant part - but those who did said it was good.
For the fondant recipe see Peggy Weaver's site - I am no expert! I encourage you to try this - it really isn't that hard.

Coconut cake:
1/2 cup butter (room temperature)
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sugar
5 egg yolks
1 teaspoon soda
5 egg whites
2 cups plain flour
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup of coconut milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
Cream butter and shortening with sugar. Add egg yolks. Sift flour and soda together. Add alternately with buttermilk and coconut milk beginning and ending with flour mix. Beat egg whites until stiff. Fold egg whites into batter gently so the batter is as light and fluffy as possible.
Pour into greased/floured pans or cassarole dish. I used Baker's Joy spray that has flour in it - I love that stuff!

Coconut filling:
1 cup frozen fresh coconut
3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon coconut milk
2 large egg yolks, lightly beaten

Combine milk, butter, and creamed coconut in a small saucepan over medium-low heat; cook, stirring, 3 to 4 minutes. Whisk one-third of the hot milk mixture into egg yolks. Return mix-ture to saucepan; cook, stirring constantly, until it is the consistency of pudding, about 5 minutes. Remove pan from heat. Stir in coconut. Let cool, I press saran wrap onto the surface so that no 'skin' develops on top. Refrigerate - I make a day in advance.

I had extra coconut milk, sweetened condensed milk, and buttermilk when I was done.
I hate to throw all that away, if not for the wastefulness then because I don't want to make a special trip for coconut milk next time I make this cake. So, I freeze it. What I do is open a small sandwhich size Ziplock into a coffee cup. I pour the milk into the ziplock and seal it, pressing out any air and it is ready for the freezer. It is really nice to have aliquots of buttermilk in the freezer because it makes great muffins, pancakes, biscuits, and cakes - but i never just happend to have some in the fridge.