The Network Learning Project Assignment for ITDM&L has had a very powerful impact on my life. Not only did having to learn something new through online resources get me out of my comfort zone in technology, but also in the kitchen. My daughters are so impressed with the two fondant cakes I baked and decorated, they have put in requests for their upcoming fall birthdays.
I repeated the entire process yesterday to bake a “Dr. Who” themed cake for my son’s 13th birthday and will review all of the steps here:
Having the right tools is essential to the success of decorating with fondant. Three tools you must have are a gel mat (or other non-stick mat), a fondant rolling pin, and fondant smoother.
Other supplies I purchased are fondant to cover cake, colored fondant for letters, letter, star and number fondant (cookie) cutters, and fondant decorating dust.
Technology tie in: I used Evernote for my shopping list, and Pinterest to get cake ideas. As you may know from my previous NLP blog, I learned how to work with fondant by watching several videos on Youtube. On our cruise they offered a cake decorating class so I attended and will use some of those techniques on future cakes as they involve additional tools and traditional butter creme frosting.
Having the right tools for baking is important too. Mark gave me his baking pans with removable bottom for flawless removal of cakes. I highly recommend these, as it provides non-stick removal…no loss of cake when transferring from pans to dish.
I baked two 9″ cakes, let them cool completely, removed one cake and frosted the top:
Then turned the 2nd layer upside down on frosted layer to get a flat surface to cover with fondant.
Important step: You must frost the entire cake with butter cream before covering cake with fondant.
Now the fun begins. Working with fondant is reminiscent of playing with play-dough, except is starts out very hard, almost like taffy. It did soften quickly from the warmth of my hand but there is a lot of kneading involved.
The next step is to determine the dimensions of the cake and calculate how much fondant you need and diameter in inches it must be rolled out. The calculation is to measure across the top of the cake. My cake was 9″. Then measure the height. Mine was 2.5″ high, double the height to 5″. Then you add 2 inches. So 9+5+2=15″. Lots of rolling!
(The swirls are from mixing in fondant dust.)
The next step is a challenge: getting the fondant ONTO the cake without tearing or bending the fondant. One video I watched on YouTube showed to roll the fondant onto the rolling pin to transfer it onto the cake. Genius!
Smoothing the fondant across the top is easy, but smoothing it down the sides without getting folds or tearing it is difficult. I recommend using a Fondant Smoother. I trimmed the excess fondant away with a pizza cutter.
I then sprinkled blue fondant dust on, spread across top to create a starry look.
Dr. Who, for those who may not know, is a time traveler who travels across time and space in a Tardis (fashioned out of an English phone booth). I was trying to create the feeling of space for this cake.
I used letter, number and star cutters for the writing and decorations.
I rolled out green fondant, cut out letters. Cut stars out of excess fondant and dusted them, more heavily that the cake. The videos said to add a bit of water to the back of letters and shapes to get them to stick. I learned last time too much water makes the colors run. :/ So I used a q-tip this time. Videos recommended a paintbrush. All of ours had been used for painting. I had no spare, and no time for shopping. (Started cake at 7:30 am for a 10:00 party. Finished at 10:05. Thankfully all guests were fashionably late!)
Technology link: I ordered a mini light up Tardis online through Amazon.com.
One hint: I had to cut tiny crosses into the fondant to stick the candles into the cake.
The cake was a huge success. The boys were pulling the starts and letters off before I could but pieces! And as you can see, there was very little left. The boys had a great time, the adults were impressed with my new found domestic skills, and I was delighted with my accomplishments.
I shared the pictures on Facebook from my cell phone camera and have had numerous comments and likes about the process.
This NLP has been a very exciting undertaking and I’m grateful for the experience. Mark (my fiance) is an artist and I know he was dying to co-create on this project. I will definitely let him assist with the next two cakes as he can mold amazing things out of fondant. I will post those on my blog too.
Thank you for sharing this adventure with me!
