Dabbling with Marshmallow Fondant

When Little A turned 1, we didnt have much a of celebration for her birthday. In fact, I didnt bake a cake nor did I purchase any balloons. The one thing I did do however, was to ask Grandma if she could bake Little A a simple cake and we would just cut it before dinner. Grandma of course did her bestest, baked her a nice little bunt, stuck a sparkler on top and bought her two balloons to go with it.

In my defense, I was back to working full time then and between sleepless nights, (Little A was waking twice each night, crying and still feeding) waking early, showing up to work looking like a zombie for months on end, I was too tired to slot in baking and planning a birthday party. Any downtime I had was zzz time. Since then I have been simmering in guilt, feeling very un-mommy like for failing to put in some effort into having a birthday party for my child. But I digress, more on mommy guilt in a separate post.

This year after giving birth to Little C, I was set on making Little A's 2nd birthday special for her. The event itself wasnt much to shout about, just a simple party for a few kids and family with some nibbles. But my planning and effort went mostly into the cake.

I decided I wanted to make a beautiful cake for her. I had heard about how easy it is to use marshmallow fondant to cover a cake and how tasty it is compared to regular fondant. I know I have skills when it comes to arts and crafts so I decided to google and to accomplish what my mind had set out to do.

Little C was just born then and I decided to use his little "coming out" party (he turned 1 month old) as a trial run for playing with the fondant. I googled the recipe for marshmallow fondant - which was simple enough to follow.

Ingredients

1 pack of Marshmallows

1kg pack of icing sugar

1 tsp of water

Method

Put marshmallows in a bowl, add one teaspoon of water into the bowl, chuck them in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each 30 seconds until the marshmallows have melted. It should take about a minute to melt depending on how much marshmallows you are melting down. Remove from the microwave and stir in icing sugar until you can stir no more. Cover your hands with copious amounts of icing sugar, turn the contents of the bowl out on a sugared surface and using your hands, knead, adding icing sugar continuously until you get a dough like consistency. You stop when the dough can be stretched for roughly the length of one feet. If the mixture gets too dry or you have gone too far with the icing sugar, add a teeny spoonful of water and knead it again.

At this point you can add colors to batches of the fondant and store them for later use. It must be wrapped up to prevent it from drying and kept in air tight containers. I kept mine double wrapped in plastic and stored in Ikea containers in the fridge. I used gel colors to color my fondant. Do not use food coloring on the fondant unless you dont mind washed out colors.

I bought some fondant supplies from a baking supplies shop to get me started. A Wilton mat, roller, gel colors, pizza cutter, shaping tools (which I barely used) and an edible ink pen. 

I did a trial run of shaping objects with Little C's cake. Mom and I played with the fondant for a little bit to get a feel of it. Together we made little booties, a milk bottle and a pacifier. The yellow beneath the booties is meant to resemble his yellow blanket but its also to break up the white surface of the cake. 

This is the picture of Little C's finished cake. I made simple little squares to resemble alphabet blocks to spell his name and used an edible ink to write the letters on the blocks. I wasnt too happy with the effect of the ink because the pen seemed a little dry. I had to rewrite the lines a few times because the ink wasnt flowing very well. The cake is not the work of a professional but I think it passes muster for a first attempt. When covering and decorating the cake, I was more concerned about finishing what I had started in between Little C's sleeps. 

A week later we made Pooh Bear and Piglet for Little A's cake. These figures for Little A took more time to shape than Little C's but since we already got the feel of the fondant the first time around, it was easier to work with.

This is the picture of the completed cake. A Pooh Bear themed cake. I was planning on making a honey pot to go with it but decided the cake was crowded enough. A simple Happy Birthday and a number 2 candle finished the job nicely. For future cakes I think I will be getting alphabet cut outs from the baking supplies shop so I can make letters out of fondant.

I think if time allows, I will be playing with more fondant in the future  :)  I set out the challenge for myself to make pretty cakes for my kids and I think I aced it for a novice armed only with a googled recipe for marshmallow fondant.  I have pretty much decided that the next cake for Little C's birthday shall be a rainbow cake. Maybe I will cover that with white marshmallow fondant but I dont think I will be shaping any figurines or objects for that cake. Baking a multitiered, multicolored cake will be the challenge there for me.