So I was thinking about making a cake using fondant, which, in all of my cake-baking thus far I have been avoiding like the plague. It seemed really complex! But I then I found several fairly simple recipes for something called marshmallow fondant, which I had never heard of before. It seemed so simple! So I played with the proportions of things and made a beautiful cake! So I thought I'd share this super-sticky-fun cake-decorating confection with all of my fellow cake-happy craftsters...
HOW TO MAKE MARSHMALLOW FONDANT
...another fancy fully pictorial tutorial brought to you by river watson
First off- welcome to my kitchen. It is extremely small. This is my pot rack.
I heart my rachael ray pots and pans and my eyeball lights!
Anyway my kitchen isn't all sunshine and roses! This is all the counter space I have, so bear with me...
^ This is everything that you will need.
-(1) 2 lb bag of powdered sugar
-(1) lb bag of marshmallows (minis work well)
-(1) package of gel food coloring
-(1) can of vegetable shortening
-(2) big glass bowls (a glass bowl and a plastic bowl will also suffice)
-(2) tablespoons water
-a silicone spatula to mix with
- a roll of plastic wrap
- several sheets of wax paper
- a cutting board or clean counter top
- kitchen scissors
- a non-stick (or greased) rolling pin
-(1) completely frosted cake
This is a super cheap project if you are already equipped to bake cakes. Anyway, where do you begin?!
Step 1: PLOP ZAP STIR ZAP STIRMelt the marshmallows. (Add 2 tbsps water to your marshmallows just to help them along.) You can pop them in the microwave or heat them up on the stove top as you would for rice krispie treats. However I am SO lazy and I was sort of pressed for time, so I put mine in the microwave. Most recipes I read insisted that one would use mini marshmallows, but I used big ones because they were handy and I had no problems.
I used 1/2 lb, or about half the bag. I just PLOPPED them in a pyrex bowl, added a little water and ZAPPED them in the microwave, STIRRING every 30 seconds for 1 minute. That's ZAP STIR ZAP STIR.
Many recipes called for 2 and a half minutes of zapping, stirring every 30 seconds. That may work in a double boiler but not in the microwave! So be very careful with your fluffy marshmallow goo. It can get very hot, however you melt it. Let's not burn ourselves, k?
Step 2: SPLOOGE FOLD FOLD FOLD *PSHEW* FOLD FOLD FOLDNow that you have your fluffy melty goo all fluffy and melted... prepare another big mixing bowl with about 1/2 lb of powdered sugar in it. I patted out a little well in the sugar at the bottom of the bowl so that I could pour in the goo without it sticking to the sides.
Then I SPLOOGED the goo around the bowl with my spatula until it was evenly coated in sugar, forming a slightly-less-sticky ball of goo. Then I folded the sugar into the ball, then added more sugar and folded some more. Then I rolled up my sleeves, greased up my hands* with Crisco and got angry.
This part is SO FUN!
See? Just keep kneading and FOLDING and adding sugar until you reach the consistency you desire. Most recipes I saw called for 2 lbs sugar for every 1 lb marshmallow, but I wanted a shinier, thicker fondant, so I used less sugar. It was very pretty, but it was a little more difficult to work with, I think!
Also make note that your hands are warm and the warmer the fondant, the runnier it seems. So don't sugar it to death.
Once you're done showing your fondant who's boss... It's time to say good night.
Step 3: SWADDLEDouble-wrap it extra tightly in plastic wrap, just like a burrito. (Otherwise it will dry out and become very hard to manage later.) You CAN use plastic ware just so it's easy to fit in the fridge, but you MUST use plastic wrap first. Otherwise your fondant will be dewy in the morning. And that would be bad too.
SWADDLE up your fondant tight- he's on his own in the fridge all night!
Goodnight my little fondant ball!
NEXT MORNINGStep 4: SPLASH (obviously optional)
Next, we're going to add a SPLASH of color! Yay! Just fold in the color gel as you did the sugar...
In old-school baking, red was always limited to varying shades of pink, as icing and fondant is originally white, and it's hard to achieve a true, deep red without using so much coloring that you turn your icing or fondant into almost-red-food-dye-soup... Enter Betty Crocker stage left. FINALLY a good red gel food coloring! It starts out pinkish, but just as with most food colorings, as it sits, your cake-covering medium will soak in the color and become deeper and more defined.
Observe the brilliant
vermillion! Gorgeous, no?
And finally, I rolled my fondant out in between 2 sheets of wax paper and then peeled off the first sheet, turning my fondant over onto my cake and smoothing and trimming to fit! This seems to be the hardest part. It's all about eyeballing it. Thankfully there are lots of eyeballs in my kitchen.
I applied another small white sheet of fondant to my cake for the decoration and then finished it off with some decorative icing.
FINISHED PRODUCTA beautiful Twin Peaks** Black-Lodge-inspired birthday cake for my David-Lynch-loving boyfriend whom I SO
adore.
Add some matching candles and call it a day! I did, anyway.
As always, thanks for looking!
Happy crafting!
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*This part was pretty gross, but now my hands are super soft!
**Twin Peaks was a TV show during the 1990s. It was EPIC. If you haven't seen it, you must. The Black Lodge is a sort of mystical magical room with a zig zag floor and red curtains, hence the cake.
^The Black Lodge
PS: Wanna see what it looks like on the inside? It's chocolatey!
click>>
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=238211.msg2617569#msg2617569 ^^here
UPDATE:
I finally finished my John Deere Tractor cake:
See the complete thread with more pictures here:
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=245271.0
