Cake Decorating: Fondant How-To Guide

After drooling over fondant-covered cakes I did a lot of research on how to cover a cake. A lot of my initial preconceptions were entirely wrong:

• No marzipan necessary :)
• It takes time- bake, cool, crumb coat, set, fondant, decorate...
• Practice makes perfect!

I found loads of YouTube videos but after checking out the comments section I found that those tutors had made mistakes, also some tutorials don't go into enough detail for first timers!

Norman Davis and Zane Beg of The Sweet Life Bakery in DC have a great series of YouTube instructables, start off with this one on crumb coating and follow up with this covering lesson. They have a lot more gumpaste modelling tutorials, but I found these two most helpful for beginners. I watched these videos a couple of times each before attempting a cake and now I know all of the steps off by heart, and I'm getting quicker each time I make a cake :)

This is the first cake I ever covered with fondant. I cut out squares of fondant using a table knife, and used a piping pen (Dr. Oetker) to write a CV and Intern Application (this was a cake for a career advisor!) 

I used those piping pens to fill in the Belgian flag, (as we had been to Belgium with said faculty member). I outlined the black, yellow and red and then flooded with icing on the inside, using a table knife to spread the icing.

The gold gel used was bought in Brussels, at Home of Cooking. 

After asking questions at my local sugarcraft supply store (Cake Craft Carrigtwohill) they advised me that the Create-A-Cake Ready to Roll Icing was too heavy to use in covering and better for modelling, therefore I changed to Renshaw Professional Ready-to-Roll Icing.

This cake was for a member of Cork Campus Radio staff who was sadly leaving (Miss you Bridget!!) 

To say thank you to the person who taught me everything about radio I used the Renshaw fondant, and Dr. Oetker black piping pen to draw earphones, a mic and musical notes. 

To spruce it up a little I rolled up balls of yellow Create-A-Cake fondant and secured them to the base of the cake using buttercream.

This beauty was for my sister Aileen's birthday back in April. Renshaw fondant covered, Home of Cooking gel piping pen, yellow Create-A-Cake fondant rolled into balls, secured at the base with butter cream and also used same for roses. 

I have seen loads of different rose tutorials but this is what worked for me: cut rolled fondant into slices about 1cm thick and not more than 7cm long. Roll the slice to create a rose, gently pulling the petal tips outward for more realism. Bundle up on top of each other, secure with a dab of buttercream. 

To make these very realistic I cut a tiny bit of the gold wrapper from a Moet and Chandon bottle of champagne and secured it with buttercream so that the flowers resembled a bouquet. (FYI, I would only advise this if you are there to remove this bit of inedible material, otherwise you run the risk of choking your dinner party!)

I topped the whole cake with edible disco dust in a neutral hologram colour.

This cake was for my aunt, Noreen's birthday. The same as above but I placed the roses in a pile in the centre so you could see roses from every angle.

I piped in a circle for a more sophisticated look, topped with disco dust and finished with a gold ribbon tied around the cake.

The recipes used for these cakes are just ordinary sponge, so whatever's your favourite will do! I'll share with you my special chocolate sponge recipe soon.

Hope you enjoyed this post, and that it helps you get started with fondant! I have a long way to go so if you have any tips please leave a comment below!

Stay sweet! x

Chocolate Birthday Cake

Calling all chocolate lovers!!

For my boyfriend's birthday two weeks ago, I wanted to make something a little different than the regular cocoa-sponge and cocoa-buttercream (he loves chocolate almost as much as I do!)

When I was in Harvard back in 2011, I purchased the 'flour' cookbook by Joanne Chang. Joanne was a Harvard business grad turned pastry chef who has three neighbourhood cafe-bakeries in Boston (which I am ashamed to say I have not visited...yet!) 

This book would be a great Christmas present as it is innovative, indulgent and takes the fear out of more complicated projects such as homemade pastries (watch this space!) It's a beautifully laid out book, with a practical gloss-hardback cover and really is a foodie's dream!

Due to lack of certain ingredients, and wanting to bake a cake and not cupcakes, I made numerous adjustments to the recipe for Chocolate Cupcakes with Crispy Magic Frosting.

*Note that the book requires Dutch-processed cocoa (or alkalized unsweetened cocoa poweder); this is treated with an alkali so that its natural acidity is neutralized and it has a stronger flavour. It does not react with baking soda- which is why it must always be used with baking soda and is not interchangeable.

Not a huge fan of red... :P

This recipe is also known as 'dump cake' because it's so easy, you just dump everything into the one bowl! :) However it does need to sit for at least an hour in order to thicken the batter. This is not a cake to be made in a hurry- you've been warned!

The air bubbles will also disperse once the batter sits.

Ingredients:
56g good quality chocolate (I used Lidl's 76%), chopped
30g Bourneville cocoa
200g ganulated sugar
114g unsalted butter
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1 egg yolk (keep the egg white as it can be used for another recipe within the next day)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
140g self-raising flour

1. Grease two 6-inch cake pans.
2. In a Pyrex bowl, combine the chocolate and cocoa powder.
3. In a small saucepan, heat the sugar, butter and water over medium high heat, whisking occasionally for 3-4 minutes, until butter is melted and sugar is totally dissolved.
4. Pour hot mixture into the chocolate and cocoa bowl and whisk (using a handheld mixer) until chocolate is completely melted and the ingredients are fully mixed.
5. Whisk milk, egg, egg yolk and vanilla into the mixture until thoroughly combined.
6. Dump the flour into the bowl and mix until combined.
7. Let batter sit for at least one hour to allow the batter to thicken. It can sit in an airtight container for up to three days in a fridge.
8. 20 mins before baking, preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
9. Bake for about thirty minutes or until the top of the cake is springy to touch.
10.  I used ordinary buttercream icing, as you've seen on the blog before. As per usual, ice when cool.
11. To decorate I used miniature chocolate chips, I think these reflected the intense chocolate flavour of the cake. Of course you could also pipe a sentiment if time allows.

This cake is guaranteed to make the birthday boy or girl smile!

Pretty Pink Birthday Cake

My mum recently visited England and returned with a plethora of baking supplies!! I was so excited by the look of this pink food colouring I just had to use it ASAP! Luckily it was her birthday so I had an excuse! I also used shimmer sugar, mini marshmallows and non-edible confetti to create this pink masterpiece!

I followed the traditional, foolproof sponge recipe from the Odlums website (as used in other posts!) and it worked a treat! It stayed fresh for a couple of days after and it was neither heavy nor bland. Definitely a go-to recipe that took mere minutes to prepare.

Although I wasn't not a fan of jam I used Strawberry Preserve here to humour the other members of my family- and it tasted amazing! I'm officially converted! :)

For the icing I copied the Magnolia Bakery Traditional Vanilla Buttercream Icing, from the book The Complete Magnolia Bakery. I'd advise not to use the milk as indicated in the recipe as the icing really never sets because of it (and it's a constant worry as to the Best Before date of the milk afterwards!) Because of the runny consistency of the icing the top layer of the cake looked treacherous, however the cake didn't last long enough for the construction to be tested! The food colouring was bought in the Morrison's in the UK and is a fantastic product! Much better than trying to guage the pinkness while using red dye! It also has a built-in dropper which makes measuring much easier!

I used miniature marshmallows to spell out "MUM". I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of this before! They were perfect to use for writing as they stay stable after and for short words are big enough so that the message isn't lost atop a large cake! I wanted to pipe "Happy Birthday", however Mum came home early, so I downgraded to some cute (unfortunately non-edible) confetti I had... I think the shimmer sugar (Dr. Oetker, available at all good supermarkets) made up for it though!

A truly sweet cake which I think would be wonderful for a fairy princess-themed party!