Practice Elephant

I decided to give it a go at a miniature elephant figurine made out of fondant. It's not perfect but at least now I know it's something I can do and get better at. I was happy that Amber (my almost 2 year old) could tell what it actually was!

Cake #3

So, here's cake #3 and I am very proud of it! I thought it turned out so cute!!

I used my Bosch mixer this time with the dough hooks to do a large batch of fondant. It seemed really dry at first but when it was all mixed i took it out and kneaded it in small groups and it was perfect!!

This is after I kneaded it all. Kneading them all together was a little bit harder. :)

After kneading the white fondant all together I covered it in grease and wrapped in plastic wrap. I then did a smaller batch and divided it into three bowls and added food coloring. I was excited about the colors. I wished that the orange was more neon, but it was still cute.

I have had trouble keeping the fondant from sticking so my very good friend, Emily, told me to mix powdered sugar with corn starch and put that underneath rather than just powdered sugar. It worked perfectly!! Thanks Emily!! Jeff was sweet enough to slide the cake under while I was holding the fondant. What a good little helper and quite a hottie if I say so myself! :)

Looks good, huh? The back cracked some, but the front looked fine. I'll have to watch more carefully next time.

After I cut out the stars with cookie cutters I placed them on a damp towel. I then put them on the cake and they stuck great.

And here is the end result! You can see how it puckered some on this side. I think if the fondant didn't have quite as much powdered sugar I might have been able to shape it better...we'll see for next time.

Here's the inside. It was so yummy!!

DO

Use Bosch for big batches of fondant!!

Cover fondant (that is not on cake) when not being used

Shape fondant to cake quickly

DON'T

Put in all powdered sugar at once in Bosch when making big batch of fondant

Cake #2

Ok, so here's cake number two...I learned a lot from doing this one...I'm excited to see the improvement as I go along.

I learned that I not only need to grease my rolling pin, I need to grease my work area as well. And not with Vegetable oil, but with Shortening.

I read that you need to let your fondant rest for a bit before you use it if you want maximum results. This was some extra I made from the other night. When I pulled it out of the fridge I put it in the microwave for 10 seconds and this is what I had!! It was perfect and much easier to work with!!

Now the problem is that I didn't have enough fondant to cover the cake. I rolled it too thin and tried to make up for the edges and it progressively got worse...but still not to bad. I like the stars. :)

If you look closely, you can see a couple air bubbles next to the stars. I didn't even notice until I was looking at the pictures. :)

DO

Grease work area VERY well

Make sure to lift fondant during rolling time to make sure it doesn't stick

Make fondant ahead

Cut edges off some if wanting more rounded look

Use bigger work area

Look for air bubbles

DON'T

Use too much powdered sugar

Roll too thin

Knead more than necessary

Cake(s) #1

So here's the first cakes. I made them for Jeff's niece who just had a surgery last Wednesday.

It started out well enough. I mixed and baked the cakes along with the buttercream frosting to go in the middle and on the outside under the marshmallow fondant. They're cute huh?

This is the marshmallow mixture. It's just 1 cup of marshmallows with 4 teaspoons of water. I heated in the microwave in 10 second increments until all the lumps were melted. Then I added the food coloring. I was hoping for a lime green color but I'll get there. I suppose I'll add some yellow to it next time. I also wanted to do hot pink rather than purple. I just used the wrong colors. It will just take some practice I suppose.

I added my powdered sugar and it made something that looked like play dough. I rolled it out and put it on my cakes. It actually went really well! There were some cracks but I had the fan on which dried it out some. I'll make sure not to do that next time. :)

Here's the finished product! It doesn't look at all professional but I was very happy with the end result! It was my first try and I thought I did great! The reason I am being critical is because this blog is mostly for me to see the cakes I've done and know what I can do to improve next time. At the end of each blog I will put down things that worked great to do next time and things NOT do next time as well. Wish me luck!!

DO

Make the fondant thick when rolled on top of cake

Make sure cake is cut straight

Use Crisco on hands and work area

Lift fondant every so often while rolling out to make sure it doesn't stick

Have thinner fondant for decorations on top

DON'T

Have fan on

Use proper cookie cutters (I used a water bottle lid!)

Use more than necessary powdered sugar

If anybody has ideas on what I can do to improve, please let me know.

THANKS!!

My New Obsession

I LOVE watching the Food Network Cake Challenges and have recently decided that I want to learn how to decorate cakes with fondant. I love the topsy turvy cakes that Anne Heap does and would love to learn how to make them. This is my goal. Anne Heap competes in some of the cake challenges on food network and owns a shop called Pink Cake Box in Denville, NJ. I love her cakes and am excited to learn and TRY to make cakes that look somewhat like hers. :)