Fondant

 RECIPES


Fondant/Sugarpaste, Modeling Paste (These recipes are not mine I am sharing of what I have found)

•  I think of fondant like it is a bit like play dough but of cause it is edible. As well as using fondant to model with for your decorations you can cover your cake with rolled fondant to give it a smooth, professional look and is very fun, easy to work with and can do many things you just have to have practice. I don't think it taste the best as it is very sweet and can only have a very small amount of it but what it can makes your cakes look like is fantastic and there is a wide range of ideas for using fondant for different themes, colours, shapes and decorations. It can be bought in supermarkets or a cake supply shops and can be pre-coloured or you can colour it yourself ( I use Wilton's Gel Colours)

• Also by adding 1 ingredient to your fondant, you can make modeling paste which I will try and is better for modeling and more efficient as it easier to work with, dries harder and keeps its shape. This can also be purchased in stores or you can choose to make it yourself. These recipes won't include your usual ingredients in your cupboard, so you may need to add them to your shopping list if you choose to make this recipe

Fondant  - makes 625g ( 1 1/4 lb)

• 1 egg white
• 30ml ( 2 tbsp) liquid glucose
• 625g (1 1/4 lb/5 cups) icing (confectioner's) sugar
• A little white vegetable fat (shortening) if required

1. Put the egg white and liquid glucose into a bowl, using a warm spoon for the liquid glucose.
2. Sift the icing (confectioner's) sugar into the bowl, adding a little at a time and stirring until the mixture thickens.
3. Turn out onto a work surface dusted with icing sugar and knead the paste until it is soft, smooth and pliable. If the paste is  dry and cracked, fold in a little vegetable fat (shortening) and knead again.
4. Put into a polythene bag, or double wrap the paste in cling film (plastic wrap), and store in an airtight container.

Modeling Paste - makes about 500g (1 lb)

• 10ml (2tsp) gum tragacanth
• 500g (1 lb) rolled fondant (sugarpaste)

 

1. Put the gum tragacanth on a work surface and knead it into the fondant.
2. Double wrap the modeling paste in polythene or cling film (plastic wrap) and store in an airtight container for at least an hour before use.

Please feel free to write a comment or email me, for more information go to Contact Me

Sweet 16th Birthday Cake

Sweet 16th Cake

This cake was made for a 16th birthday party, but this isn't the sort of cake you could make for

anyones 16th as it has it's own personal touches, to make it mean something more for whoevers birthday it is. From the simply shaped and covered cake I added a specific looking iPhone, make-up, art charcoal sticks and a paint palette (all edible). But you could add anything like this just with your fondant and fondant tools and things needed for decorating and modeling with fondant. You can be creative in your own way. I found the shape of the cake particularly challenging with ganaching and covering with fondant as i have carved the sides coming in on an angle making it difficult to make it neat as possible. I tried to make the angle and amount of cake i was carving off as equal as possible around the cake.

My Goal:
I still am trying to perfect and level my ganaching more and more every time to make my fondant as smooth and tidy as possible. I will just need more and more practice. I find the smaller the cake the easier.

 ALL INCLUDED:

White chocolate mud cake (planet cakes recipe)

Milk chocolate ganache - Made of 900g of milk chocolate 
(could mix with a percentage of dark chocolate depends on the strong flavour) and 450mL of pouring cream at boiling point mixed and set to consistency for spreading and covering 

Syrup - 1/3 Apricot Jam mixed with 100mL boiling water. To spread on cakes before ganaching and spread with a pastry brush after ganache has hardened on your cake for your fondant covering to stick. Also used to stick on decorations     

Fondant - modelling and covering cakes. For best results for modeling knead fondant in a small portion of tylose powder, this makes it easier to model with and your models and figures will dry a lot harder than normal fondant, this is also called modeling paste
 
Wilton gel colours- colour fondant for modeling, use skewers to add the colour to fondant little bit by little bit to get the right shade.
 
Pre-coloured fondant - To get big portions of vibrant colours that are not worth colouring yourself (for this cake, pre-coloured fondant was pink, red and black)

skewers or dowels - to keep levels of cake in place

edible dust - I used red dust for this cake in the little make-up single eye shadow, it was additional to the red make-up to make it more realistic. Also black dust around the sticks of charcoal, to give the additional detail for the charcoal smudges and dust looking effect.


glucose syrup (store bought) - I spread a thin layer of it with a paint brush (clean one only use for fondant, do not use one that has had paint on!!!) on the fondant models of the iPhone front screen, black on make-up models, blobs of paint on palette to give it a real shine, gloss and more detail. This is very sticky, but it hardens. Apply about a day or two to your dry figures before decorating your cake.

tools - non stick rolling pin, cake smoother, knife (for carving and shaping), paint brush, board (dusted with cornflour), circle cutters.


Edible Glitter - Finish Touch
 
Board - Presentation board covered in fondant

Pink Ribbon - for the soft, pink look and presentation

Click to view photos larger ^

Simple Surprise Cake

 Simple Surprise Cake!!

This was only a very simple cake that didn't need much planning and was excellent for a quick surprise cake but you still need spare time. Choose what ever flavour cake you want, whatever suits you, I had chosen a simple butter cake from scratch but not only just for the taste but so i can also create these beautiful colours inside and it is still a surprise even when you cut the cake open. I find if you only make a simple, plain decorated cake (but it still looks fantastic and delicious in a different way) on the outside, I find I want to make the inside even better.

To create the colour effect going up from light to dark in a shades of blue, after making your butter cake, Madeira, vanilla cake or white mud cake (white, plain based cake) batter, if having 4 layers like me divide the batter into 4 bowls equal as possible. Add your colouring carefully to each bowl and create different shades by adding more or less than the other. Look at the bowls of batter from darkest to lightest and touch it up if needed.

Personal Touch: Even though it is very simple I still made a touch to mean something. If you are a fan of the Friends show having your name written like looks awesome, but this is only for those friends fans.


ALL INCLUDES:

Butter Cake (homemade)

Syrup (homemade) - 1/3 Apricot Jam mixed with 100mL boiling water. To spread on cakes before ganaching and spread with a pastry brush after ganache has hardened on your cake for your fondant covering to stick. Also used to stick on decorations

Fluffy Frosting (homemade) - spread in between layers, stick cake on board and spread on outside with a spoon. This icing is best to be spread on the day the cake will be eaten

Fondant - model the 16 (add toothpicks to the bottom of these to stick them in), white name slab

Rainbow pearls and Silver Cachous

skewers or dowels - to hold layers together

edible writing pens - write on fondant and comes in many different colours

ribbon

candles

board

edible glitter - finish touch (optional)