Fondant!!!

I wanted to do a blog post about fondant because it’s something I recently learned how to do, and it’s way easier than I thought it was going to be!

You see, I volunteered to make a cake for my Grandaddy’s 90th birthday! Of course I had no idea what to do for a grown up birthday cake and I wanted it to be extra special, so I went online and I found this cool family tree cake, but I knew that it would be really hard to pull off with icing. So I began searching fondant.

I asked friends who all said most of it didn’t taste very good and that just wouldn’t do. One weekend I baked a cake mix into three small cakes and topped each with a different flavor of icing. Canned vanilla, canned chocolate and homemade cream cheese frosting (I’ll never eat canned cream cheese frosting again).

I put all three into the fridge and started working on fondant. I tried one kind that claimed to taste like buttercream, but it just turned out to be a sticky mess! Then I tried marshmallow. The first batch again turned out bad, but I tried again and this time it worked!

So how did I make it? Throw some mini marshmallows in a bowl with a little water (1 tbs). Heat in thirty second intervals in the microwave stirring after each heating. Finally when it’s all melted, start adding some powdered sugar. When it starts coming together, spread some Crisco on your counter and all over your hands. It’s best to keep this in a bowl on your counter because as it works into the fondant it will start sticking to your hands and the counter and you’ll need more!

Then you just knead it, adding more and more powdered sugar until it’s all like a soft modeling clay consistency. Then slap it in a Crisco greased container and put it in the fridge. I bought a fondant mat that I could use to roll it out and it really helps to measure how big a piece of fondant you’ll need. And a fondant roller that will help roll a consistent thickness.

Carefully drape it over your cake and use a fondant smoother. There are tons of tutorials on the net so just google it and have fun! I started with these cute cakes. Just a couple of white cakes, then decided to try to tint it with gel colors and stick fondant shapes on the outside.

I decided and consulted coworkers and Jack that the cream cheese frosting had the best taste with the fondant! So I made these cute cakes for Nell’s birthday!

Red Velvet cakes with cream cheese frosting and blue fondant with white fondant stars and red trim. For Nell’s “smash” cake, I just frosted a yellow cake with vanilla frosting and decorated it with blue fondant stars and red trim.

Here it’s served with some cake balls which I’m going to share in another post! 

So now I was ready for my grandaddy’s cake! I started with a chocolate sheet cake and homemade cream cheese frosting. Then I covered it with white fondant. I had some problems with tearing this time. I think maybe I didn’t use enough powdered sugar in this batch! I then tinted two balls of different shades of brown and mixed them together to create the marbled tree trunk. I used some dark green fondant and hand cut out all those little leaves! I was so tired of leaves. Then I used some brighter green fondant and made larger leaves. I used am edible marker and wrote each child, grandchild and great-grandchild’s name on a leaf. Then used the same edible marker to “carve” my Grandaddy’s initials into the tree. It was really a hit!

Some people want to know what’s next?

Well I’ll tell you, no fondant for quite some time!