First Communion Three Tier Cake

My little girl's First Eucharist was approaching and we were planning a small celebration at home. I emphasize "small."  We discussed what kind of cake she may want and she talked about three layers.  I thought "no problem!" I usually do a two layer cake, but three layers wouldn't be a big deal.  Until I realized that she actually meant three TIERS.

Ok, so this was another challenge on its own. Was it necessary or needed for what we were planning? Of course not.  But, I wanted to meet the challenge and I also wanted a happy little girl to be proud of her cake at her celebration after all the time and hard work leading up to her First Eucharist. 

We sat down one night to plan it out and here is the drawing we decided on. We talked about doing a few different types of cake and buttercream and landed on it being strawberry and vanilla flavors with buttercream and covered in fondant with crosses on the sides. 

I started working on it a few days in advance with baking the different cakes and wrapping them to keep until we assembled everything. 

Here is lovies helping with frosting as we put the layers together. The turntable for frosting that I got several years back really came in handy for this! The strawberry was so much more moist from the fruit so it proved more difficult with the fondant, but we made it work!

The topper of the little girl kneeling is the same exact topper that was on top of my First Communion cake in the 1980s.

She was SO excited about it and loved her cake. 

I want to work on getting the fondant even more smooth for each layer, but it wasn't too bad. 

The fondant recipe I used is my favorite thus far.  Previously, I've made a white chocolate fondant.  This was a white chocolate and marshmallow fondant with making it completely from scratch and without using the marshmallow fluff. 

White Chocolate Marshmallow Fondant

Ingredients:

3 C. mini marshmallows

1/2 oz. white chocolate, finely chopped

1 T. butter, cut into pieces

1 1/2 t. cream or milk

1 t. clear vanilla

3 C. powdered sugar

Directions:

Place marshmallows, white chocolate, butter and milk into a microwave safe bowl. Heat for one minute and stir until melted and smooth.

Stir in vanilla and add in half of the powdered sugar. Stir as much as you can and scrape down the edges. The mixture will be very sticky.

Lay down a large plastic mat covered with Crisco and sprinkle it with powdered sugar. Place the marshmallow mixture onto the surface and knead it continuing to add more powdered sugar. Knead until it's no longer sticky and it won't take anymore sugar.

Wrap the fondant in a flat disk in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator until you need to use it.

If you want to color it, take a small amount and add a few drops to a small piece that you can then knead into a larger piece until a consistent color of your liking is developed. 

Complete and on display, ready for cutting and serving with homemade vanilla ice cream.