A little girl from my church was having a birthday party and requested a pink leopard cake. Being new to the business, I said "Sure thing" but inside my brain, I was wondering how the heck I would do pull this off.
For starters, I made a 12" chocolate cake, iced it, and stuck it in the fridge to chill. (I always put my cake in the fridge to chill before smoothing fondant over it.) Once out of the fridge, the cake and icing are a bit "stiff", which makes me more comfortable pressing it under the fondant. Also, as the icing warms up, it "sweats" just enough to help the fondant adhere to the cake without me having to add anything.
Moving on...
I made and colored my marshmallow fondant the day before so it would have time to rest. I kneaded and rolled the hot pink fondant out almost to the size of my cake. (You don't want to go the full size yet b/c there will be more rolling.) I shaped small chunks of black fondant from Wilton and pressed them sporadically into the hot pink fondant. Then, I did the same thing with the light pink fondant but the pieces were smaller and I placed them off the center of each black spot.
ROLLING TIME!!
Now is the time you finish rolling out the fondant, spots and all, which makes the spots blend/smooth easier. It makes the spots seem more real to me. If you look closely, however, the smaller spots are different; they aren't quite as smooth. I had to go back and add in smaller spots to fill in the gaps in the pattern. Essentially, I did the same thing by shaping a chunk of black fondant, adding a smaller chunk of light pink fondant to the black spot and smoothing it all together once it was already on the cake.
I finished up with a white fondant plague and black butter-cream bead borders. Those are 2 real ribbon bows just to save time and money.
I hope this was helpful or at least gives you an idea of the technique I used. Stay tuned for other tutorials coming your way!!
