Fondant or Buttercream?

It's definitely a question that bakers all over fight over. While each medium has its benefits both have definite drawbacks too. Personally, as far as eating cake goes, I prefer buttercream 10 times out of 10. To me, fondant tastes like a cross between flavorless bubble gum and those little orange circus peanuts and I peel it off the cake. Not exactly what I want to eat. Both fondant and buttercream can be flavored though, but the texture really does stay the same. For sculpting, fondant wins hands down. Making detailed 3D figures is truly what fondant/gumpaste is made for. They hold up well, are easy to mold, and work well as smaller accent pieces.

Let's compare the taste issue by looking at what exactly goes into each one:
Fondant: glucose (corn syrup), powdered sugar, and water.
Gumpaste: glucose (corn syrup), powdered sugar, gumtex, and water.
Buttercream: butter, shortening, cream, and powdered sugar.

You can see why the fondant and gumpaste alone wouldn't have a great taste. Adding extracts (vanilla, almond, lemon, etc.) can greatly improve that issue. The texture though is inherent to the medium, just no changing that. Buttercream too can be a bit plain without extracts, maybe a little too sweet, but there's no beating the texture of a silky smooth frosting.

Each baker has their own style and will prefer to work with a specific medium, whether it's fondant, buttercream, or even those crazy Europeans and their marzipan, but a great baker will know when to make use of or limit each to best highlight the flavor of the cake, as well as the taste of the consumer. Cause some crazy people actually like the taste of fondant.

As you can see, buttercream frosting with a fondant ACCENT piece. :D Still yummy