I learned from doing this cake that working with gumpaste is A LOT easier than working with fondant for cutting out detailed images. You can roll it out thinner, cut it cleaner, and it dries harder. Actually I learned that from the monkey cake but had forgotten and tried to cut out the gray detailing around the shield from my homemade fondant and was about to tear my hair out trying to make it look nice. (I technically didn't use gumpaste, I added Tylose Powder to my fondant so that it would turn into gum paste. It works great though! Details :)
I also tried something new with this cake. I frosted it in ganache instead of buttercream under my fondant. I have heard that ganache is what they primarily use under fondant in Australia and England, so I finally tried it. I. LOVE. IT!! Oh my goodness, all the annoying issues I have with buttercream suddenly vanished and I had a perfectly smooth and flawless cake under the fondant and as a result the fondant was perfectly smooth and flawless. And it didn't get way too soft and melt and bulge under the fondant in this 100 degree weather like buttercream does. And one more perk, it tasted yummy and my heart didn't go into crazy palpitations from too much sugar when I ate a piece. AHHHH Loved it!!
