Sweet Safari

I have a confession: I miss Play-Doh. There are days when I wish I still had a couple of cans of that salty goodness (oh, come on, like you never tasted it) to roll into snakes and snowmen.
Somehow, though, this doesn't exactly fly as a "grown up" hobby like reading or jogging or gardening or whatever. And that makes me pretty sad. At least, it did until I discovered something:

Fondant.

It's ADULT PLAY-DOH! (And it's actually meant to be eaten, which is a bonus.)

I've used fondant before, but only for relatively easy things like bows and cutouts. I've never tried to free-style, so to speak. But when I found out I was doing a baby shower cake, and that the mom-to-be was decorating her nursery in a jungle theme, I figured I'd branch out a little.

Let me tell you, trying to hand-cut intricate little jungle animals out of fondant takes a lot of time and patience. (And that's after the time spent coloring the fondant.) Gluing the pieces together with royal frosting is a bit of a royal pain. But it's still so much fun.

I wasn't entirely happy with this cake (and would do several things differently in the future), but I did enjoy the Play-D...um, the fondant.