When I was researching
fondant for Abby's birthday cake I asked my friend,
Rockie, if she had any experience with it. She is pretty crafty and suggested that I take pictures as I made it so others could see the process. This is how it all happened!
First, I took a bag of marshmallows put it in a bowl and microwaved for 30 seconds at a time. I think I did this 2 or 3 times. I was suppose to put water in the bowl, but forgot. It didn't seem to matter. Second, I dumped half a two pound bag of powder sugar onto a clean surface. Then dumped the melted marshmallows onto the sugar. Washed my hands! Kneaded the marshmallows and sugar. Added the rest of the sugar and kneaded. It was pretty sticky in the beginning. I thought the fondant would dry out with the more sugar I added, but it quickly absorbed. It was just like kneading dough for baking bread. I refrigerated it overnight.
Abby was so excited to help. Fondant is really a lot like play dough. I let her have her own piece to play with.
Icing the cake with butter cream frosting, so the fondant will stick.
Adding the food coloring wasn't easy. I was suppose to use food grade plastic gloves, but couldn't find anywhere local that sold them and didn't have the time to order online. I had a few alternatives in mind, however, those didn't work out, so I decided I would use my bare hands and soak them in nail polish remover to get rid of the food coloring. To my surprise, I didn't have to subject my skin to toxic chemicals after all. The food coloring came right off when I washed my hands. Whew! I put several drops at a time into the fondant and kneaded it over and over until the color spread throughout. This took a long time. I literally washed my hands dozens of times while making this cake.
I think I would have had to use the entire bottle to get the color a consistent blue. Brian reassured me that it looked good the way it was and I moved on.
There were some tools that I wished I had, like a fondant rolling pin. I wasn't ready to spend the money on it, but I think it would have helped make the fondant even. The air bubbles must have been from not kneading enough. Now I know for next time.
I was hesitant to use a lot of powdered sugar when rolling it out. The next time I definitely won't be. The fondant stuck to the counter, which made it difficult to get off. That caused it to thin out in some places. I wondered if that would be the end of it, but was happy it turned out as it did.
Taking a break. Time to make Nemo!
Looks like a circus peanut.
Nemo didn't turn out quite as I had in mind. The more I worked with the fondant the softer it became and didn't want to hold it's shape. I had to put it in the refrigerator to let it firm up and then take it out to work some more. I was willing to settle with what I had and know it wasn't going to be "perfect". On my first attempt at writing the message I didn't like how it turned out, so I carefully wiped it off. I wasn't crazy about the second time, but wasn't about to attempt it a third time.
Here are some pics in no particular order.
