Fondant or buttercream? Both can make a beautiful wedding cake, but they behave differently and they give a very different finish. The right choice depends on the look you want, the flavour you prefer, the venue and, importantly, how the cake will be stored.
At our London bakery we use Swiss meringue buttercream for our wedding cakes. It gives us a smooth, light finish, pipes beautifully and works especially well with our sponge and ganache fillings. We still use fondant where it earns its place, particularly for modelling, figurines and decorative details.
Buttercream vs fondant at a glance
Buttercream is soft, creamy and flavour-led. Swiss meringue buttercream is made by heating egg whites and sugar before whipping them into a meringue and adding butter. It can be spread, piped, textured or smoothed for anything from relaxed floral cakes to polished tiered designs.
Fondant is a pliable sugar paste rolled into a thin sheet and laid over a prepared cake. It gives a very clean, uniform surface and is particularly useful for sharp edges, saturated colours and modelling.
Appearance
Fondant is useful when the brief calls for a very uniform, architectural finish. It can be coloured strongly, embossed, painted and modelled, so it remains a practical option for highly structured or novelty work.
Buttercream gives a softer finish. It is excellent for painterly colour, vintage piping, florals, textured surfaces and smooth contemporary cakes. It can still look formal and precise, but the effect is less shell-like than fondant.
Flavour and texture
This is where buttercream usually wins for us. Swiss meringue buttercream is silky rather than crusting, and it can carry flavours such as vanilla, coffee, citrus, chocolate and pistachio without overpowering the sponge.
Fondant is primarily chosen for finish and structure. It is much sweeter and chewier than buttercream, and some guests prefer to leave it on the plate. That does not make it a bad material; it simply means the decision is often visual rather than flavour-led.
Structure and weight
Fondant is denser and adds more weight to a cake. It can also provide a robust surface for modelling and detailed decoration. The cake underneath still needs to be properly built and supported; fondant itself is not a substitute for good internal structure.
Buttercream is lighter, but a tall or tiered buttercream cake still needs the same disciplined approach to boards, dowels, chilling and transport. The strength of a wedding cake comes from its construction, not from the outer coating alone.
Colour
Fondant takes bold, opaque colour particularly well. Buttercream can also be coloured deeply, but the natural tone of butter and the quantity of colouring required can affect the final shade. For softer palettes, buttercream is especially beautiful.
Storage and warm-weather weddings
The filling and frosting determine how a cake should be stored. A cake containing cream cheese, mascarpone, whipped cream, custard or other perishable fillings needs refrigeration regardless of whether the outside is fondant or buttercream.
Fondant can be refrigerated, but it should be protected from fridge odours and moisture. Condensation can form as a cold cake returns to room temperature, so keep it boxed and allow it to acclimatise without touching the surface while it is damp.
Buttercream softens as the temperature rises. For a summer wedding, especially in a marquee or a warm venue, ask where the finished cake can be kept before display. A cool room may be enough for a stable buttercream cake for a limited period, but refrigeration is the safer choice when the filling requires it or the venue is hot.
So which is better for a wedding cake?
If flavour and a softer, more natural finish matter most, we would usually choose buttercream. If you want a highly sculpted finish, strong colour or intricate modelled decoration, fondant may be the more practical tool. Many cakes use both: buttercream for the cake itself and fondant for selected decorative details.
The venue matters too. Before deciding, check the display location, room temperature, refrigeration and how long the cake will be out before it is cut.
If you want to see how we use buttercream on finished designs, browse our wedding cakes. Home bakers can also explore our recipes and baking guides, including our Swiss meringue buttercream recipe.
Personally l can not stand fondant. It’s very chewy and rubbery in the mouth. A good cake shouldn’t be too sweet or have a rubber like cover. It does feel like cheating just rolling fondant and covering the cake with it. Baking is supposed to be fun and at the end of all the fun you should create a good cake that taste and looks good.
I came to google to find out the difference between fondant and buttercream because I had no idea…pretty much know nothing about cakes but I loved this article. Very useful.
I have recently just started a wedding cake service company and came across this article.
Really appreciate you taking the time to educate us on this and i just wanted to say that this is so true. I find that that i love crisp, traditional, sharp finish of fondant cakes but i love the taste of a buttercream finished cake. At the end of the day no matter what the cake looks like, you’d have to agree that fondant will always taste like fondant right? Like you said it comes down to what you want to achieve with your wedding cake.
Tom
I always love the finished look of cakes covered in fondant but buttercream cakes are always more lustrous.