Its becoming a tradition around here for me to make my little sister's birthday cakes. For her 9th birthday I tried my hand at marbling/ tie dye
For birthday number 10 I went for ombré
Both cakes were big hits but the tie dye more so than the ombré. So her 11th birthday was this past week and I was trying to come up with something new to do. So of course - I searched Pinterest! I began pondering the idea of fondant but let's be honest any fondant I've tried has been pretty nasty. Well I searched homemade fondant and it turns out that homemade fondant is supposed to taste better. I mean it's made with marshmallows and powdered sugar...how could you go wrong?
First things first I decided to go with just a boxed cake mix. It's cheap and easy and usually has pretty good results. I did doctor it a bit though using the instructions I found Here.
Then I started working on the fondant. I'm new to blogging so sorry about the lack of and poor quality of the pictures! I followed These directions for making the fondant. First step is to melt the marshmallows and let me tell you they were not joking about greasing everything! Melted marshmallows are about the stickiest things I've ever encountered. For my first batch I added the orange food coloring right to my melted marshmallows. I dumped it all in the mixer and started adding my powdered sugar
Also I forgot to add water when I melted the marshmallows so my fodant wasn't sticking so well... I just threw some into the mixer... Problem solved. It takes quite a long time to add all of the sugar and get it all mixed in
But eventually it starts to have a frosting/fondant consistency. Once it no longer sticks to your hands in the mixer you can take it out and hand knead it some more. Make sure you grease your hands and the surface! Finally I just rolled it up into a ball and wrapped it in plastic wrap
I made two batches. The orange for my base color on the cake and I made a white batch to use for the design that I just planned on mixing the colors in later. I wrapped them both in plastic and let them sit a few days...
When it was time to put my cake together I had two hard balls of fondant. I put them in the microwave in 15 second intervals and added some crisco and it softened right up. Then I rolled it out... Again make sure you grease EVERYTHING. Once it was big enough I wrapped it around my rolling pin loosely, moved it to the top of my cake and smoothed it all out
I should add that before I added the fondant I frosted the cakes with a homemade buttercream frosting to make sure the fondant stuck... I used this recipe for the buttercream.
Once I had both cakes covered in orange I stacked them. I had bought the smallest wooden dowel I could find and just cut a bunch of pieces the same height as my bottom cake. I stuck them all right into the bottom cake with another dollop of frosting and I added the second layer. The dowels helped to support to weight of the second cake.
Now it was time to add my decorations. I split my white dough into three sections and added a blob of frosting dye then kneaded it to make sure it all got mixed it then I just rolled it out the same way and cut out my circles with a cookie cutter
To make my circles stick I just added a tiny bit of water to the back of each one and kind I pasted them on. Here's my finished product!
Things I learned along the way...
- your cakes need to be flat or they won't stack well... I had a big gap in between mine
- a well placed ribbon can hide any gaps!
- the color shows up much better and is more vibrant when you knead it in instead of mixing it into your marshmallows
- don't believe your Grama when she says you better make a big cake because there will be a lot of people - you end up with a whole cake left over and then you and your husband are forced to eat the whole thing
- finally your little sister will love it even if it does sort of resemble a hamburger instead of the cute polka dots you were going for
Happy Birthday Ruby!
