Today, for absolutely no reason at all, we decided to try making fondant for cake decorating. No celebration to go to but a great way to use a Sunday afternoon. We started with a Martha Stewart cake recipe that we had had our eyes on for a few months and topped it with a chocolate butter-cream frosting before diving in with fondant.
Fondant is icing. But it's weird icing. It's made of a LOT of powdered sugar, gelatin, corn syrup and any food coloring that you may desire. It also takes a fair amount of effort to make - there is a significant amount of kneading involved to achieve the desired smooth consistency. We did not utilize a stand mixer for the original blending, but have decided that we should anytime we were going to attempt this again. The fondant should be extremely smooth and easy to roll out, but it is a little tricky to get it to the stage between too sticky and so dry it's cracking everywhere. This also requires a fair amount of space - we had to abandon the counter top in favor of Stacie's extra large kitchen table. Covering the cake is tricky, as the icing layers in between make it slippery (watch out for leaning cakes!) and you have to gently press the fondant down to avoid wrinkles. Decorating came next and is the most fun! After significantly more kneading to get the dye in evenly, you can use cookie cutters or your imagination to create the overall look that you want. Only one question remains - do you eat fondant on your cake?? Comment and let us know. :-)
