Fun with Fondant

This past year I rediscovered an old lost love: the Food Network. And there are all these awesome new shows on - many of which are now safely recording away on my DVR for the rare moments I get to watch one of my shows (generally late at night when Miss E refuses to go quietly into the night).

One of the biggest developments in food? Fondant! This stuff is so cool! The cakes that can be made with fondant are truly spectacular. I was always intrigued by cake designing, but although I tried many times, I'm just not too talented with piping. But the more I watched shows like Ace of Cakes and Challenge, the more I wondered: Hmmm, maybe I could do this? Which led to a bit of research (yes, my name is Melanie and I'm an online research addict. Deal with it.), which led to discovering Marshmallow Fondant (or MMF), and the idea that I could make this glorious stuff with items I already had on hand was simply too enticing to ignore. So, with the idea that this would be fun for the kids and me to play with on a day off school in December, I whipped up a batch, made a couple of 6" rounds, and started playing! Fun, fun, fun stuff, let me tell you - they don't call it PlayDoh for grown-ups for nothing! And actually quite yummy - the kids' favorite part was definitely Quality Control.

et voila! one perfectly fondanted cake! :)

I started with dots - seemed safest.

The kids' masterpiece!

This early trial set fire to my kindling interest, so with my Christmas money from my Momma, I bought the basic tools necessary to make some "real" cakes.

In our family, December, January and February have 8 birthdays, so I have plenty of cake-making opportunities coming up. My niece Tiana's was the next birthday, and she was super excited to help me make her cake. She requested red and blue flowers, with purple polka dots. It took a bit of coercion, but I finally convinced her to leave the polka dots off. It turned out pretty well, and I learned even more about what to do differently and better.

And since I'm such a glutton for punishment, instead of just making Mace whatever cake I could reasonably make, I ask him. He first wants the Hylian shield, but I had to refuse. He settled on the Ultimatrix from Ben 10, so it looked like I was making my first sculpted cake! Whoopee! And after several hours, one botched batch of MMF, a lot of angst (and maybe a little swearing), it was done! I'm no Cake Boss, and - contrary to my wonderful children's enthusiastic suggestion - I will not be the next Ace of Cakes, but it resembles what it was supposed to, is pretty cleanly done, and I am satisfied.

Miss E's birthday is next, and I'm full of ideas!!