Tag Archives: fondant

An Anitabot themed Birthday cake

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All I wanted for my birthday this year was to make a cake with my friend Kristie. I actually wanted to sit down with her so I could learn some techniques since she is more advanced than I am. Some skills that I wanted to work on were tiered cakes and fondant covering. As I have mentioned before, I had no idea how to ‘finish’ a round cake that is covered in fondant.

Kristie liked this idea because she also wanted to practice being creative.

We decided the theme should be ME. That is, things I like. It’s hard to believe that this is a cake for a 32 year old but we came up with a 3 teired cake:

Bottom Tier: 8″ round with Muppets on it
Second Tier: 6″ round with Rabbids on it
Top tier: 4.5″ round with my ‘anitabot’ face on it.

Wonky cake

Wonky cake

There were so many options we went through but decided on these in the end. Lego was a big contender but after looking up pictures of lego cakes we realized how hard it would be to sculpt lego out of anything.

The biggest and most important lesson I learned during this process is that I have a huge disconnect from reality. In fact, we both do. In our heads, this cake was going to be gigantic. In reality, it wasn’t.

The bottom layer was supposed to be an ode to the Muppet Theatre. Specifically, we wanted it to reflect the end of the intro song where all the Muppets are in that weird archway thing.
Seen here from the Muppet Wikia:

Muppet theatre arches

Muppet theatre arch thingies.

We failed to measure the height of the cake, and realized how large our arches were. Then there was the case of the super melty cream cheese frosting that caused the fondant to slip. We had planned on making the columns to support the arches, but there was really no room for that. If we ever make another muppet cake (and I actually hope we do), I think we’ve learned a lot.

Rowlf, Beeker and Bunsen, buckling.

Rowlf, Beeker and Bunsen, buckling.

Rowlf

Rowlf

We chose to do flat Muppet ‘busts’, because we thought it would be simpler than 3D muppets. I think we did a great job of that. I do realize that Rowl isn’t normally within the arches in the opening of the show since he’s in the orchestra playing the piano, but he’s my favourite muppet. I created Beeker, Rowlf and Fozzie. (Beeker is my other favourite muppet, tied with Rowlf. Fozzie is… fine). We omitted Miss Piggy because she has the most detail of all of them!

Gonzo, Fozzie & a Rabbid

Gonzo, Fozzie & a Rabbid

We Also thought that there would be room atop the 8″ muppet cake for the wee rabbids I sculped out of fondant to live. But as you can see, not quite. The rabbids were somewhat difficult to make. I tried to make ears, eyes, arms and legs separately, but they were too small to stay together. I ended up sculpting the head and ears out of one piece, and adding the eyes on. The body with legs and arms was another piece. This worked well. If I ever make another Rabbid cake (which I hope I do), I’ll also have many lessons under my belt.

The top layer – the Anitabot face, was the easiest. I did however learn about cutting cake boards. I couldn’t find a 6″ or a 4.5″ cake board, so I had to cut them down. The best way to do this involves a compass and a protractor. It DOES NOT involve free handing it with an exacto knife.

I made the Rabbids and the cakes earlier in the week. I coated them on the Friday… and we had about 6 hours of made decoration, so we were a bit more rushed. This cake was just for me and a chance for us to play, so we weren’t beating ourselves up over our mistakes.

work in progress

work in progress

For me, there’s definitely 4 distinct stages to cake making

  1. 1) The design/planning phase where I figure out what it’s going to entail
  2. 2) The preparations part where I think this is going to be the best cake ever made
  3. 3) The actual decorating where I realize my dreams are much higher than my skills, and I realize this cake is going to be the stupidest, ugliest, crappiest thing ever made
    4) The subsequent pleasure I feel when it didn’t turn out so bad!

We definitely rushed this cake, but there was a sort of fun with that. It tasted great! I think my next cake project will be no more than 2 layers with one cohesive theme!

Quick Owl Cake for Jenn!

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Jenn's Owl Cake

Jenn’s Owl Cake

In what is quickly becoming a tradition, I made a birthday cake for my sister-in-law, Jenn. She loves owls so I decide to make a simple owl cake. Why the odd colours? Mostly because those are the prepared fondant colours I had pre-made from previous cakey endevours.

I had even less success than the PB & J Time cake in terms of fondant covering. I still haven’t figured out tho make it seamless… and have no idea how to get the sharp corners on the top. I don’t mind the look of the rounded corners, but there’s something about that sharp, crisp corner that looks appealing.

I also failed to properly take into account the size of the cake surface. I eyeballed the owl, entirely and I was pretty pleased how it turned out, except that I wanted it to be a lot smaller!

I’m pretty pleased with the branch. This was easily achieved by using a few different wilton food colours. I mixed brown with yellow and the ‘skin’ colour*, which is not brown, but a sort of peach colour.  I mixed these into a long rope of white fondant until they swirled together nicely, then I flattend with a rolling pin! Voila! Instant wood texture. I’d definitely like to use that technique again.

I also used a #3 round tip for writing, which was just oversight on my part. I meant to grab the smaller #2. That’s why the writing looks pretty smushed together. Despite that, it’s still better than some of my previous attempts with writing (perhaps the thickness allows for mistakes to blend a bit more), which I’m pleased with.

In the end, Jenn loved the cake so that is all that mattered. I got a bit more experience and practice with things that are new and that made me happy!

 

*(This of course means caucasian skin tone. Though, nobody’s skin should ever look like this).

Peanut Butter Jelly Time cake! (For my brother-in-law Matt!)

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I wanted to make a cake for my brother-in-law’s birthday and am not sure how exactly this was decided but it was: peanut butter jelly time! (with a baseball bat!)

PeanutButterJellyWithABaseBallBat!!

PeanutButterJellyWithABaseBallBat!!

It was a chocolate cake, with a strawberry jam filling and peanut butter frosting. I covered it in white fondant for the smooth finish on which the fondant banana, complete with maracas sat upon.  I made the banana, his extremities, eyes, and mouth with fondant colours I had made last month for the Adventure Time Cupcakes.  It was pretty lucky that I had all of the colours, and that purple worked for the arms and legs instead of the black.

BIP - banana in progress

BIP - banana in progress

The next step was baking the cake, and filling it with the strawberry jam & putting a ‘crumb coat’ of peanut butter frosting on it:

 

Crumb coated cake

Crumb coated cake

 

I’m also not very good at crumb coats, or finishing a cake in frosting. I find that I always get crumbs in anything, and then there’s the ripping of the cake as the frosting goes over it. It also drives me crazy when it’s not completely even – which it never is. I tried my best, and this was ok considering it was being covered.  After that sat over night, I put on the fondant. It was my first time covering a cake in fondant, but with some tips and resources, it turned out well!

Fondant Covered Cake

Fondant Covered Cake

 

I just wasn’t sure how to finish off the ‘back’. I believe like every Christmas tree, every cake has a ‘back’. The ugly side that no one ever needs to look at. I’ll figure out the fondant smoothing/sealing technique for next time.  Also, since my cake board was larger than the actual cake, cutting the fondant around the bottom was tricky. I covered up the unsightly cutting job with a slightly-less-unsightly fondant ‘ribbon’. It was kind of uneven but it did the trick, it looked better than the previous cut job!

Ugly back of cake. Don't look!

Ugly back of cake. Don't look!

 

The last step was just putting the actual banana decor on the cake. I used fudge frosting to do the outlines of his mouth and eyes and it looked way better once I added that. I also used that fudge frosting to write the letters – which also turned out better than anticipated. I am not good at cake writing, my hands shake quite a bit. I also just free-balled that alignment and was super pleased that I eyeballed it well enough!

Adventure Time Cupcakes (For my friend Lauren!)

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Adventure Time Cupcakes

Adventure Time Cupcakes... Go and tell you friends!

My friend Lauren’s birthday is coming up and since I’ll be away on vacation at that point, I decided to create a gift for her early.  She shares my love of Adventure Time With Finn & Jake, and even dressed up as Lumpy Space Princess for Halloween. So it was a no-brainer.

I also hadn’t baked since LAST Christmas – over a year! So I decided it was high time that I started practicing my skills again.

I haven’t worked with fondant that much at all, so I decided to make the shapes for 4 characters. There is: Finn, Jake, Lumpy Space Princess and Peppermint Butler. They were the easier shapes to capture. I wanted to do Gunther, the penguin but dying fondant (or icing) black is near impossible.

As with any baking/decorating projects, there were some key learnings:

  • I planned and sketched out every shape, and noted the colour I would need. This was good
  • I started earlier than planned, and each day I did a little bit more than planned, and it worked out perfectly in the end
  • Chocolate cake is crappy because it rips more easily when being frosted
  • The medium cupcake liners are TOO small. The cupcakes too easily rose above the liner, and so the fondant shapes didn’t sit nicely within. This is bad.
  • The medium cupcake liners made the cupcakes smaller and thus they kind of fit awkwardly into my new cupcake carrier. Lesson learned: USE LESS BATTER IN EXTRA LARGE CUPCAKE LINERS.
  • Black frosting is hard to make. Watering down chocolate fudge frosting sucks. It was hard to pipe with as it was the wrong consistency. I should have used royal icing for the consistency – but how would I get it to be black? I don’t know, I’ll have to learn.
  • Also, outside of a paring knife, what can I use to cut out freehand shapes from fondant? A scalpel? How do I get a smoother edge?
Finns in progress

Finns in progress

I’ll explain how I did each character.

First, everything was white fondant that I coloured using Wilton’s gel colours.

Finn: I decided to make two circles of blue – dark for his pants, light for his shirt. The dark blue is a standard round cookie cutter, the light blue is a smaller size. I cut out his hat shape using a paring knife. I also free-hand cut his face. I put the light blue on the dark blue (a little water on the back of fondant and it will stick to other fondant), and then I rolled my rolling pin over to make slight smooshed in. I did the same with his face on his hat, so it looked more ‘inset’. I piped on his face with my horrible black-fudge-frosting mixture that was too watery.

Jake: He just needed yellow and white. I free-handed his jowls. Instead of trying to dye fondant black, I decided to pipe on the blacks of his eyes. Meh! His nose is also piped on.

Lumpy Space Princess: The easiest! I used the standard sized round cookie cutter as a guide, but just free-handed her blobbynes. The yellow star is from a jar of cake decorating sprinkles – I just picked out the yellow ones. I also drew on her face.

Oh my glob!

Oh my glob!

Peppermint Butler: White circle for his base, and the same dark blue from Finn with a notch cut out for his pants. The red was free handed inside of a standard cookie cutter face. The buttons and face were free-handed. I actually forgot to put on his little red bow-tie. I thought it would be too hard to cut out such a small shape from fondant, so I then thought I could pipe it on, but there wasn’t much space. (And I didn’t want to make a batch of royal icing just for tiny tiny bow-ties).

Peppermint Butler

Peppermint Butler

I used generic frosting to attach the fondant to the cupcakes…

All in all, it was fairly simple, just a lot of work. I have a lot of fondant leftover so I’m going to be making more things. Practice makes perfect!