Monday, June 23, 2008

Fondant Flowers

What would you do with a ball of fondant and bak-klene.?I don't know about you but I would make flowers! Course I didn't really have a choice in the matter considering I was at my job and someone paid for me to make particular flowers for their cake but regardless it made me a pretty happy decorator. Here's how I did it....obviously the first step is to roll out the fondant, not too thin but not too thick making sure you have plenty of bak-klene to keep from sticking. That's right bak-klene and not scrubbing bubbles. Yes, *sigh*, I once mistook a can of bak-klene for a can of scrubbing bubbles and couldn't figure out why the fondant was foaming instead of rolling out. It took several tries, a few decorators, and a couple hours later to figure out the link. But in defense they look very similar and did I mention a few other decorators?

Pass the classic Amelia Badelia moment that I tend to have, fondant is really quite easy to roll out. And with the help of our master decorator David to give me some guidance and tools, the flowers are pretty easy too. First off I should tell you what type of flowers I was making; the lovely cherry blossoms that are so in trend right now. Usually we use gumpaste for those but because of the price tag the client opted for fondant, not quite as realistic but still impressive. With small and medium flower cut outs simply press into the fondant for the perfect little flowers. Then using the nifty little green tool above you take the flower in your hand, use the ball side of the tool, and give it a spin in your hand to make it curl up for a lifelike appearance.

Take your delicate little flowers and place them in a bowl or shallow dish filled with powered sugar.
This is actually a two day process because now they need to dry and I mean really good because next you get to paint them!

This is actually my favorite part as I like to reminisce about my days as an art student. Starting with the lightest color, gently paint the dry flowers almost to the tip. Let that dry and add the second color, only painting halfway now to still show off the lighter color.

Layer the last coat with dots of bright pink and vola! A cherry blossom. Glue onto your decorated cake or make them just because you can and your done. Look, your cake grew flowers.

1 comment:

Sweety said...

I really loved this cake. The little cherry blossoms were so sweet.I also like the little birds you added later...You are so talented. Molly