This is the first cake that I've made since we've been in Texas. The climate here made the fondant stickier and the chocolate ganache that I attempted to put into the first layer became soup inside the cake. I ended up having to scrape most of the ganache out of the cake and put in cherry filling. The first tier is french vanilla cake and so it is now filled with a thin layer of ganache and cherries. The second tier is white almond with raspberry filling and that came out great in this climate. I had to cover the first tier twice because of my melting ganache filling mess. Even now the fondant on the first tier is not perfect. Even with central air the house was just too warm for chocolate. I guess if I want to make any more chocolate fillings I will have to wait until January, which the locals say gets cold enough to wear a coat. Also, because we just moved here and I don't have all my cake supplies I didn't have any food coloring on hand so I mixed lemon Kool-aid powder with the frosting to make the yellow to pipe happy birthday. It looks pretty good but the Kool-aid made the frosting so sour it is like an atomic war head candy. The kids, who love super sour, enjoyed the leftover yellow frosting. Tim said that the sour frosting may ruin the cake, but I think that there is really not enough on the cake to make a big difference.
