So I am working on her cake this morning and I really want it to be awesome. I'm really not much of a baker, but wanted to do a 2-tiered fondant cake. I blew $80 at Michael's yesterday buying pre-made fondant and a bunch of other stuff. I remember though how awful fondant tastes! Yuck! So I decided to try my hand out at making some homemade fondant, which I'm told tastes way better. It's made with marshmallows and powdered sugar. Now I get to return the groce premade fondant. Read below for my complete directions for homemade fondant.
What a Freakin Mess
So, the homemade fondant is done! What a freakin' mess! If you've ever made Rice Krispies Treats or eaten a smore, you know how sticky marshmallows are. Well, my kitchen is a distaster right now! There is marshmallow stuck to every thing on my counter, myself, and every cooking equipment I used and whatever is on the counter. There is confectioner's sugar dust on all all the cabinets and a nice dusting on the tile floor gathering mostly in the grout. Lovely.
Ezrah is absent today and I just offred him $10 to clean the kitchen, so I can play with Indy on her birthday! I want her to have a great day and me cleaning the kitchen with her pulling on my legs isn't that fun for her. Her favorite things are bathtime and breastfeeding, so I plan to combine them and take a bath with her today. But the in-laws are coming and this mess has got to be cleaned up. Ezrah will do anything for money, so he's cleaning up right now.
Purple Fingers
I dyed it lavender, so now I've got food coloring under the fingernails after kneading the dye in. And birthday girl is napping, so I've got T-minus 30 minutes to clean up and decorate this cake! Not to mention 4 1/2 hours until the in-laws and friends arrive and the house is a disaster!!! I just tried to get a photo of the mess for you all to see, but my camera is broken! On my daughter's first birthday, my camera is broken! And I'm sitting here blogging.
Here's the finished product (taken with my phone)...as the day went on it became increasing lopsided.
How To Make Homeade Fondant
If you want to try it, here's how it's done. You'll need...
1 bag of mini-marshmallows
16oz of confectioner's sugar
3 TBSP water
butter or Crisco & flour for greasing hands and work area to "help"prevent sticking
a full-size apron, a painter's dropcloth for the floor, bribe $ to get the mess cleaned
In a large bowl dump the marshmallows and 3 TBSP of water and microwave and 30 second intervals, stirring in between until the marshmallows melt.
In a bigger bowl, dump all the confectioner's sugar, leaving about 1/4 cup reserved for later. A stand-up mixer would be best, but I don't have one, so I just mixed it by hand. I started using my electric hand mixer, which I did grease, but that was a BIG mistake. The marshmallows stuck to it so much that it wouldn't turn and it was bad. I could hardly get the marshmallow off and the confectioner's sugar was just flying everywhere. Best thing to do is grease a rubber spatula and stir with that. Add reserved sugar if you need to.
When it's all together, start to knead it. Grease your hands, take off your rings (take off rings first) and grease and flour the counter or cutting board, whatever. Knead it until it is a smooth dough. Grease hands and work space like every 10 seconds. Seriously. If you want to make an even bigger mess, you can now add food coloring by kneading it in. I mixed the food coloring first with the reserved sugar and a little water, to be sure I was mixing purple and not ugly brown or that color the playdough gets when your kids mix all the colors. You know that color I'm talking about. So I needed that color mixture in.
Put it in a shape to ready to roll. Grease the outside and grease some plastic wrap and let it "rest" for an hour or overnight.
Roll it out with a well-greased and floured rolling pin. You can use the powdered sugar in place of flour too. Roll to about 1/4 inch thick. But I think if it's a little thicker, it may not fall apart 10 times before you actually get it on the cake. If you plan on covering a round cake, do your best to have it rolled in a circle.
*Be sure the cake is as close to where you have rolled the fondant as possible.*
Have your cake iced with frosting, I used cream cheese frosting. Cake Boss calls that "dirty icing". Then, Pray to the Lord above that the rolled fondant will not stick to the surface and will stay together as you lift it and place it over the cake. If it does, roll again, pray again.
Trim edges and use decorator icing to finish the bottom edge. Go ahead and buy remade fondant for decorations and use them to cover the wrinkles and flaws (if you have any..I did) Take pictures (pictures will actually make your fondant cake look way better than it does in person) and send to your family and friends and they will be oh so impressed! Is my one-year-old baby impressed with her cake? I think so!
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