Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

I have been asked to make a daisy cake, which I have to cover in white fondant in order for the homemade daisies to stick to the cake, but I don’t know what type of ‘cover’ I should paste over the Sponge before applying the white fondant. I don’t think anything chocolate would work, would buttercream work? Any ideas and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks, Penny

Hi Penny

It depends on what sort of sponge you will use. A sturdy sponge as an all in one method or Madeira cake would be ideal for use with ganache. In the baking section of the tutorials, Mrs Jones has two great recipes. One for deep sponge cake and one for her Madeira cake. Both these cakes can take the weight of fondant covering. See both the recipes via the following links:

10’’ Round Deep Vanilla Sponge

Baking a Madeira

In her tutorial for the deep sponge cake, Mrs Jones recommends increasing the flour by an additional 10% to make the cake stronger if covering with fondant. All the other ingredients remain the same.
The Madeira cake will be strong enough to work on without any adjustments and has a longer shelf life than any sponge.

If baking sponge cake, once cool, wrap it in clingfilm and place it in the fridge for a few hours to firm up. This will help to reduce any crumbs getting into the ganache while it is being crumb-coated. If you like, the cake can be pre-filled before placing in the fridge. This will enable you to get on with the crumb coat soon as the cake is firm.

With both type of cake, use Paul’s method of using ganache as seen in the free section:

Using Ganache

I would recommend viewing all the lessons as each one has something significant to offer.

To stick the daisies to the covered cake, use either a little royal icing or white candy melts through a piping bag as glue. If the daisies are not dry and hardened, an artist brush dipped in little cooled boiled water can be used. Or if you have edible glue that too will work just fine.

Hope this helps to answer your query. However, if you need further information or help, please post back. 🙂

ps You can use white or dark ganache for the crumb coat. As the weather has been very hot lately, I suggest using a ratio of 4:1 chocolate to cream for white chocolate and a ratio of 3:1 chocolate to cream for dark chocolate. These ratios will help set the ganache firmer whilst experiencing this heat.