Wedding Cake

The bride wanted lime green, yellow and orange daisies. This is what I gave her:


This is the first wedding cake I have made since my sister got married many moons ago.




The flowers are made of royal icing. It hardens completely.

Graduation cakes

I used a Wilton character pan. The skin and chalkboard, camera and flip flops are made of fondant, and the rest is iced with buttercream.






And to make sure there was enough cake to serve, we had this one as well.

Confirmation cake

This was a regular buttercream iced cake. It turned out very nice. I liked how the flowers came out.

50th birthday cake

This was for a 50th birthday party. It was white cake with strawberry filling. The whole outside is decorated with fondant. The black fondant began with chocolate fondant. The letters on this took a really long time. Good thing I started with plenty of time (days) to spare.

Marshmallow Fondant

Here's how I make my Marshmallow Fondant.

Ingredients:
16 oz bag of mini marshmallows (I have also used full-sized with no problem.)
1-2 T water
2 t vanilla

Powdered sugar-SIFTED! The sifted part is very important. You'll need somewhere between 4-8 cups.
Crisco

Prepare your work station by putting a thick layer of powdered sugar on the clean counter top or filling the bottom of a very large mixing bowl with powdered sugar. (Probably about 2 cups.) I've read to smear Crisco on the counter first and the first time I made this I did that, but every time since I have skipped that step with no problem. I just keep my flat scraping knife handy and scrape up the fondant if it sticks in a spot. (Edited to add I did it again and wished I had used Crisco, so you should probably do that step.) Keep a measuring cup or something handy to scoop additional powdered sugar into the mixture during the kneading step. Your hands will be messy, so it's good to be prepared.

In a large, microwaveable mixing bowl, spray the inside with Pam, then put in the marshmallows, water and vanilla. Microwave the marshmallows for 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each time until they are completely melted. Then, pour the melted goo into the bowl, or onto the counter top, on top of your powdered sugar. If you are careful not to get any on the sides of the bowl where there isn't any powdered sugar, you'll be happier.

Then, grease your hands with Crisco and start mixing the powdered sugar into the marshmallows, kind of folding it and kneading it until you've incorporated enough powdered sugar into it that it becomes a very stiff ball. I keep kneading and adding sugar until I can't get any more sugar into it. This takes about 5 minutes.

Cover the outside of this ball with Crisco, wrap in plastic wrap and then put into a ziplock bag in the fridge at least overnight before you use it. It seems to keep for a while.

Bring the fondant to room temperature before you try to roll it out. You can microwave it in short increments to get it to soften up.

If you don't sift your powdered sugar you may end up with big bits of it showing in your fondant. The last batch I made without sifting, had so many bumps I had to pick them out and it left holes and I had to keep re-rolling. It was a mess.

Chocolate Fondant:
Follow the above instructions, except add 1/2-3/4 cup of chocolate chips to the marshmallow mixture before melting.
Also, sift 1/2-3/4 cup of cocoa powder into the powdered sugar at the bottom of your mixing bowl. Be careful not to put too much powdered sugar in during this step so you make sure to get all the cocoa mixture incorporated. You can always keep adding more once the cocoa part is mixed in.
Just made some of this tonight and it looks a lot like a Tootsie Roll.

Hopefully these instructions are helpful and understandable. I feel like they were a bit jumbled. Please ask if I have left you confused on any point.

Bridal Shower Cake

This cake was my first attempt at making a fondant bow. I used an online instructional page to learn how. I made the loops the night before and thought they would be dry enough. They weren't. So, I set them in front of a fan for a few hours. Still not quite stiff enough. So I assembled the bow, using candy melts as the glue and the bow was very wilty. So I rolled up paper towels and then waxed paper to fill the loops while they finished drying. I set the fan on it for a while longer, but as soon as I removed the papers, they sunk in on themselves. I think that it was not only not long enough of a drying time, the fondant may have been a little too thinly rolled out. I was under a time constraint, (of course) and so I had to just let it go.


The waxed paper worked better at holding its shape than the paper towels.


As soon as I took the paper out, this is what happened.


I used my hands to scrunch the bow up tighter and I think it looked a lot better. It didn't stay quite this nice, it needed frequent scrunching.