Watchmen Cake - Fondant vs Buttercream

Left to my own devices, I'll inevitably do something geeky. So when it comes time for my own birthday cake, I went straight to my comic book collection for inspiration and came out with one of my all-time favourites: Watchmen.

It's not polished or professional looking, but it makes me smile every time I look at the picture (and it doesn't hurt that it reminds me of one of the best parties I've ever had!)

I'm a self-taught baker who's frankly still learning to make things pretty; but despite my desire to improve in this area, I absolutely hate working with fondant icing. Why? For a very basic reason: it tastes terrible. And the first rule in the Kitchen at the End of the Universe is that you never sacrifice taste for aesthetics.

So my current goal is to become a buttercream artist. And there is plenty of room for art. See all these stunning cakes? All buttercream. There's no reason to subject people to the plasticky awfulness that is fondant.