Curling Cake (Or, "How a Bag of Marshmallows Almost Did Me In")

A bag of marshmallows almost got the best of me yesterday.  Almost.  What I CAN tell you is that this bag of marshmallows did get the worst of me.

Last week, my husband asked me to make a cake for his curling league's snack.  This particular league happens to be a men's league, and what that means to the baker providing food is that any cake-serving chart can be thrown out of the window.  Eeking twenty servings out of a 6" cake ain't gonna cut it for forty men who have just been curling for 2 1/2 hours.  So 11x17" it was.  

I made a White Almond Texas Sheet Cake, whipped up some strawberry mango cream cheese filling to put between the two layers, and crumb coated the whole caboodle with vanilla-almond buttercream.  Lovely.  

And then came the fondant.  Now.  Making and working with fondant is typically one of my favorite parts of decorating because it is essentially edible playdough. (If you care to hear about my mild obsession with playdough, please invite yourself over sometime for a cup of tea and playdough snail-making tutorial).  Ohhhh catharsis... At any rate, every other time I've made fondant from marshmallows, I have used Wegman's brand (which I may or may not be equally or more passionate about than playdough) of marshmallows.  Since we now live 20 minutes from one and I couldn't justify driving that far for something I could get ahold of 2 minutes down the road, Giant it was.  

Eventually, my fondant was made and it was time to cover the cake:

  Step 1- cover fondant mat with thin film of shortening

  Step 2- roll fondant in ball and roll out to correct size

  Step 3- add more powdered sugar so rolling pin doesn't keep sticking

  Step 4- using four hands, place mat over cake and start to peel fondant off

  Step 5- plead with fondant to come off of mat like it always does; remind it that this is not a difficult task

  Step 6- urgently beg tearing fondant to correct its wayward path

  Step 7- angrily pull mat off and throw pathetic-looking fondant shreds onto counter

  Step 8- grab fistful of sugar and throw it on fondant; begin shoving it into sticky areas of dough

  Step 9- turn down husband's offers to go pick up pre-made fondant "just in case it doesn't work out"... and for a glass of wine

  Step 10- try re-rolling out on fondant mat mat on top of more sugar

  Step 11- thrust fondant mat to side of counter, giving puppy who hasn't yet experienced sugar something to get excited about as a layer coats the kitchen floor 

  Step 12- toss out Wilton method of fondant cake covering out the window and opt for British fondant method, despite not having a large enough rolling pin

  Step 13- cover cake successfully; high-five husband and "woop!" excitedly

So, what have we learned from this?  Always go to Wegman's.