I have left the world of icing and crossed over to the wonder of Fondant! Not the boxed kind but, my own home made marshmallow kind, so good I don't even need to put it on a cake;-)
This was the week I've been waiting for, Fondant! That firm sweet envelope of sugar that wraps up a cake. Hey, you can even put a bow on it. For this weeks post I'm going to share the making of the fondant and the cake inside. I've got lots of pictures, so enjoy!
First the fondant, I scoured the internet and landed upon You Tube. Here, I found dozens of videos on how to make my own marshmallow fondant. I decided to do this because I love the stuff and Joe does not. I've heard that the pre-made boxed kind doesn't taste very good. So, just to hedge my bet and in the future make more of the yummy stuff, I wanted to get the best tasting fondant I could. I watched many videos and they all had pretty much the same info. I went with the one that had a little Crisco in it (to prevent dry fondant) and was made in the mixer (to prevent turning my kitchen into a complete disaster).
Here is a great hint I learned, if you wrap the top of the mixer with plastic wrap you don't have a cloud of powered sugar cover your kitchen!
On to the cake, I struggle with this one each week. I love great cake and I want to delight my neighbors with variety! This week I decided to make a strawberry cake and found a recipe that used a box mix but, instead of water you put in fruit nectar, I chose Strawberry Banana! By the way, I get the recipes I use from www.cakecentral.com. It's a great site and it's a place where you can talk cake. There I found a pudding filling recipe too, I decided banana!
Now on to the part I've been waiting for, ta da......decorating with Fondant! I have to say, I'm addicted to any TV that includes cake decorating. I really love the monster cake shows, how big can they go? The majority of these cake artists use fondant to cover the larger than life cakes, yes, cakes over 5' tall and then some. That's pretty much how tall I am too! I think a lot of my fascination with this has to do with my love off architecture and sugar. It's been a lot of fun making these cakes and eating them, the only problem is, I'm going to have to start another blog on how to lose weight after eating too much cake!
Oh, back to the process. I arrived at the cake shop and set up my work space. I am using a Wilton mat that has circles in 1" increments. This way I can roll out the fondant and know it will be large enough to cover the entire cake. Since I made a 9" cake that is about 4" tall (x2) I need at least a 17" circle of fondant to cover it. I roll out my fondant and then drape it over the cake careful not to stretch it and then smooth. Once it's on the cake (the crumb coat under the fondant acts like glue to keep it in place) I cut off the excess around the bottom. Then, I move on to the decorations. This week I'm using pink, purple and green (for Lili & Emmy, of course). I've decided purple ribbons & stars and pink polka dots & roses. Then some green leaves and pink & green rope around the bottom to finish it off. Making the decorations is easy, once you have blended your colors into the fondant you simply roll it out very thin and use a pizza cutter for cutting straight lines and cookie cutters for the shapes. A little water on the back will act like glue to join the two pieces of fondant. For the roses, I make a little cone and then wrap it in circles, around and around to get the look of a rose. That's it, easy peasy!
Well, almost. I had a little problem with the final shape of the cake. I may have had a little to much butter-cream under the fondant and it seemed to slump a little. But, I am just learning! Then, this week our tasting party was difficult to arrange. Lili had an open house at school and it would be to late for everyone. So, we put it off a night and cut the cake as a family. The girls and I loved it, Joe still not in love with fondant (it's to sweet for him). I had a headache and went to bed early when the neighbors came over for their slice. I was told they liked it! All in all a successful first fondant cake. Not 5' tall......... yet! ;-)
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