A Tale of Two Fondants

  "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness."

     Yep, Dickens has summed up the last two months here in the 'Kitchen pretty well. And if you don't recognize the quote from A Tale of Two Cities, well, I got nothin'. The education system failed you, ask for a refund.

     Movita is having a birthday. (the best) She's hosting a contest. (still the best) I got eliminated by her sister in the last contest. (the worst) Because I suspect  a leak here at Team O.K., seriously what are the odds Movita's sister would enter The Three Little Pigs in a ginger smack down against my Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe, I've had to keep my master plan under wraps. (the worst) No banter with Movita. (the absolute worst) I have no master plan. (still worst) I have two months to make a plan. (wisdom?) I consult the minions. (complete foolishness, although the Kitty Litter Cake with Happy Birthday Movita spelled out in chocolate ganache cat scat did have it's appeal) New plan.

     The competition at Movita's is fierce. I am not a cake baker. Truth be told I'm not much of a cake lover unless it's cheesecake then all bets are off. I had to up my game. I had to decorate, crap.

     The one and only cake I have ever gotten raves about was one I decorated with sugared flowers for a friend's birthday, until Tris knocked the house plant into the cake covering it with dirt, thanks Tris. Anyway, edible flowers, spring, violets. My six that have bloomed aren't going to cut it. Too early. Whole Foods? Not after the aphid fest last time. Who needs the extra protein? That leaves fondant, edible fake flowers. Off to the interweb.

     I'm just going to say this and get it out there. Fondant covered cakes are beautiful, no doubt about it. Unfortunately, it usually tastes like ass. All that work scraped off to the side and thrown away. After reading about the crap I could buy pre made, I decided to try making my own. I've got time. I like a challenge.

     First up, marshmallow. Why? It was easiest and tastes like toasted marshmallows. I love toasted marshmallows. I got the recipe here. Excellent site, hopefully she'll give me a few pointers despite the rather irreverent tone of this post.

Marshmallow Fondant

Ingredients

16 oz marshmallows

2-5 tablespoons water

2 pounds of icing sugar, sifted-I sifted 3 pounds and used almost all of it, just over 7 cups

shortening

Directions

Combine the water and marshmallows and melt in the microwave.

This took me far longer than her recipe, more than double the time, not sure why.

In another bowl place half your sifted icing sugar and make a well.

Pour the melted marshmallow into the well and start mixing, gradually adding the rest of the sugar.

Eventually it will be too stiff to mix. 

A couple of minutes for me.

Turn the "dough" out onto a lightly greased counter and start kneading it.

It will be sticky so grease your hands as well.

Keep adding sugar until it is not sticky, is smooth and easy to work with. 

Another couple of minutes.

Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate in a re-sealable plastic bag.

You could probably use it then but I found the texture much nicer after it had a chance to cure overnight.

You can colour a whole batch during the mixing, or separate pieces out after.

I did the pieces, kneading the colours in the next day.

It took about half an hour from start to finish

The melted marshmallow

Took a long time and about double the water?

The mess I made mixing in the sugar

The stand mixer was no help this time

The raw dough

Getting ready to add colour

Gloves so you don't stain your hands

Shortening so it doesn't stick or dry out as you knead it

Lots of gel colour

Lots of kneading

In colour

Cutting flowers

Moulds and presses

Moving along

A whole bouquet

Erica's cupcakes

Fondant trial number 1

Not too shabby

And it sparkles

Basic Rolled Fondant
recipe from here

Ingredients

2 pounds of icing sugar, sifted - again I sifted 3 and used most of it

1 package/tablespoon gelatin

1/2 teaspoon flavouring-I used vanilla

1/2 cup of white corn syrup

1 tablespoon glycerin

1/4 cup of warm water

Directions

In a small bowl, combine water and gelatin.

Let sit for a few minutes, 2, 3.

While you are waiting, start a double boiler, you'll be needing it for the next step.

Once the gelatin has plumped up a bit, place the bowl over not in, the boiling water.

Let the gelatin melt, then add the corn syrup, flavouring and glycerin.

Stir until well combined.

This should only take a couple of minutes.

In a large bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer, put half your sifted sugar and make a well.

Pour in the gelatin mixture and start mixing.

Use the dough hook on you stand mixer.

Mix until too stiff to stir with a spoon.

It will probably be sticky so it needs to be turned out onto a lightly greased surface and the remaining sugar kneaded in.

My stand mixer took it to almost completion, Woo hoo.

Continue kneading in sugar until the ball is no longer sticky but still pliable.

Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate in a re-sealable plastic bag.

You could probably use it then but I found the texture much nicer after it had a chance to cure overnight.

You can colour a whole batch during the mixing, or separate pieces out after.

I did the pieces, kneading the colours in the next day.

20 minutes from start to finish

Assembling the ingredients while the gelatin plumps up

Just starting to melt the gelatin

The whole thing in the mixer

The end result

No more pictures, I'm not givin' Hadley any ideas.

Rolling out the dough    

     I didn't have trouble with this exactly, but it wasn't trouble free either. Reading online there seems to be various schools of though on rolling it out so I varied my technique with the different batches. I didn't find much difference, however, I wasn't rolling large sheets to cover a cake I was just making decorations.

     What ultimately worked easiest for me was rolling on my lightly greased counter, dusting the rolling pin with either cornstarch or icing sugar. I also had shortening on hand to lightly grease my hands if it started getting sticky. I tried rolling on parchment paper and plastic wrap but found it a little harder to manipulate.

     To bring both to room temperature to work with, 10 sec bursts in the microwave. I used 20 secs to get it to a perfect working consistency.

    The marshmallow was harder to get thin, even sheets but it took the colour better/faster when I was dyeing it. It stayed quite elastic and I had a hard time releasing it from the cutters sometimes.

    The plain rolled really thin easily, maybe too thin. I had a problem with it keeping it's shape, then I had a problem with it sticking. It was very humid, raining all weekend so that may be a factor as well.

     A dab of water held each, gluing different bits together.

     Working with both was a lot of fun, like playing with edible Play Doh. I kept thinking how much fun kids would have making decorations for cupcakes.

     Neither dried to rock hard consistency like I thought they would. Both tasted good, sweet, really sweet but good. After reading about how awful the pre made was I'm wondering why you would bother. I didn't find it all that difficult to make, nor was it particularly time consuming. Of course it didn't look like this, this or this either so... How awesome are those cakes? Hopefully she doesn't know Movita or I'm S.O.L.

     If you have any tips or tricks, by all means pass them along in the comments or drop me an email, I could use the help. That's my tale of two fondants.