By Ellen L. Published: 2016-07-20
You're probably saying, wait a minute, where's the pink? Well, the pink is on the inside of the cake, where it really counts. This, dear readers, is the fancy and fabulous pink fondant decorated cake that I made for my little girl's seventh birthday.
Now I would've made the outside pink too but my little girl was clear on that: no 媽媽, the outside of the cake, the fondant, should be white. So white it is. Oh yes and my little girl helped tremendously in the decoration of the cake, she's reminding me to be sure to mention that.
We have already posted about making your own Homemade Marshmallow Fondant and baking your own moist and tasty Pinky Pink Soda Pop Cake and now finally we get to the really fun and exciting part, the part about decorating a little girl's cake with your own homemade fondant decorations!
So you've made your pinky pink cake and your homemade marshmallow fondant is ready. The day you want to decorate, which for us was the day before the birthday party, you need to let the fondant come to room temperature while you whip up some simple buttercream frosting (see our recipe below.) You must first have a layer of buttercream otherwise the fondant won't stick to the cake at all. Buttercream as glue! You can also use the buttercream to add yummy frosting layers inside the cake.
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| Our lovely buttercream |
Another use for the buttercream is to use it to stick the fondant decorations onto the fondant base. What did I say, buttercream glue! Water can also be used to stick fondant to fondant but we had extra buttercream and kids are messy with water (which makes the fondant kinda melty) so we used the buttercream. Just dab and stick. You can also color the buttercream with a couple of drops of food coloring and flavor it with your preferred extract flavor. Yummilicious!
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| Cake with buttercream layer is ready for the rolled fondant |
Next, center your cake on the cake board and grab your angled frosting spatula and spread buttercream in a smooth level layer all over the tops and sides of your cakes. Okay, one buttercreamed cake ready!
Let me just stop here a moment and say that this is the first time I used a cake board and I loved it! I used to use whatever large plate I had at home but plates always dip in in the middle. Which sucks for cakes. It makes it much easier to work with if your cake is on a cake board (which is just a hard flat circular board to place your cake on while you decorate and serve.)
Okay now for the next step...panic...how was the fondant going to cover the cake in all that smooth perfection one usually sees in fondant cakes?! Nervous as heck, I wiped the drops of perspiration off my forehead and forged ahead. Luckily the rolling of the fondant was a breeze, fondant it turns out is super easy to roll out, especially if you use a silicone mat.
And then I just rolled the fondant up on my extra long rolling pin and draped it over the cake, easy peasy, smooth and perfect as you please. Phew...what a relief! Fondant is just so cool and easy to work with!
Now I needed to cut off the extra fondant. I think some folks use a straight edge ravioli cutter but I didn't have one so I used a butter knife. The best is to slice off at the point where you think the fondant and cake board will meet, except allow for a wee bit extra, maybe 1/8-1/4" more. The extra is because I found that the fondant shrunk up just a tad after cutting and also because I tucked the ends of the fondant inward, making for a prettier finish at the cut edge.
Do note that the cut bottom edge ain't going look too pretty no matter how nice you cut, so don't worry too much about it. It's almost always hidden by a bottom border of fondant or even a nice bit of ribbon. We went for the multicolor balls of fondant along the bottom tier and an encircling snake for the top tier (my little girl's idea.)
As for the cake fondant decorations, what can I say? You can pretty much do anything you want. And it's so fun. And so easy. Any color, any shape. 2D or 3D. Braids or ropes or flat ribbons that fly into the air. You can sculpt out figures. You can press out lace shaped fondant or whatever you like, there are molds for everything! You can use all your cookie cutters. You can use special fondant cutters. You can bust out your kid's clay sculpting tools and use them. And best of all you can eat everything!!
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| We're using fondant presses and clay sculpting tools here |
We kept it mostly simple as it was our first try, using our cookie cutters and some fondant presses and molds, but our one fancy bit was the centerpiece rose. I had made roses as a child (a long time ago!) from bread dough and so had an idea of how to do it. Plus we found a great video on making fondant roses. Fondant, let me tell you, is even easier to work with than bread dough.
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| A hand sculpted fondant rose |
This is the part that I think is really super cool about making a fondant cake. All the top decorations on our cake except the flowers were made by my little girl. With no help from me. Just her being creative and hands on. They turned out looking absolutely fabulous and my little girl was so proud of her work. Her own work with her seven year old hands and a bit of creativity! A cake topper no less!
What a great kid project - loads of fun that kids can handle well, not too messy and the end result looks...well...good enough to eat!
So the verdict from the birthday girl? Excellent pinky pink cake. Definitely tastiest non chocolate cake made by 媽媽 so far (with even 爸爸 in agreement.) Great decorations, of course, cuz she made half of them. Fun? Oh yes, because she got to work on it together with 媽媽! Overall, then, we were tinkled pink with our Little Girl's Fondant Decorated Pink Birthday Cake. Delicious, pink and fabulously fancy to look at!
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| My girl's little lambie fondant decoration |
If you have a special someone's birthday coming up, why not try making a fondant cake yourself? I promise you it's not that hard and the effort is totally worth it for the oohs and aahs when the birthday girl or boy sees their special fondant decorated cake!
Vanilla Buttercream Icing Recipe
(makes 2 1/2 cups) Prep time: Cook time:
Ingredients:
(makes 2 1/2 cups) Prep time: Cook time:
- 1 cup butter, 227g, room temperature
- 3-4 cups icing sugar, sifted, 375-500g
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- pinch salt
- 2 tbsp milk or cream
Directions:
Cream butter until pale in color and smooth, a couple of mins. Add in 3 1/2 cups sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, then mix at high speed for 15 secs until incorporated. Add in vanilla, salt and mix in.
At this point the consistency should be a firm thick yet spreadable consistency that is good for using as the base for fondant and in between cake layers. However if you find it is too thick to spread easily add in milk or cream, 1 tbsp at a time until you reach the right consistency. If too thin add in more icing sugar, 1/4 cup at a time.
Double Tiered Fondant Cake Decoration Instructions
Decorations:
- cookie cutters, fondant presses, silicone molds, etc. for making decorations
- clay sculpting tools, toothpicks, etc. for making detail marks on decorations
- edible pearls, glitter, edible paint, etc. for decoration
- 1 cake board, diameter larger than that of your largest cake
Ingredients:
- 2 cakes, one smaller by 1-2" diameter, room temperature (see our pinky pink cake recipe here)
- 500 g fondant (see our homemade marshmallow fondant recipe here)
- 1/4 cup icing sugar
- 2 1/2 cups buttercream icing (see above recipe)
- food coloring (we like to use concentrated icing color gels for best results)
Directions:
Cakes must be completely cool. Place larger cake centered on to cake board. If cake is rounded on top use a large serrated knife (or cake leveler) to gently saw off the rounded crown. If you slice the crown off, flip cake over so that sliced side on bottom.
Spread a thin and even layer , approx. 1/4" thick, of buttercream over tops and sides of both the cakes, making the buttercream frosting as level as possible. Place in fridge to let the buttercream set for a while.
Note: If you wish to add frosting layers, split cakes evenly into layers and apply buttercream before putting the layers back together. You may need extra buttercream in that case.
Slice off half your fondant and color it your desired color by adding food coloring and kneading until the color is evenly spread. Cover any unused fondant.
Sprinkle working surface and long rolling pin with icing sugar. (I recommend a silicon mat for rolling. It makes it so much easier to roll and lift.) Measure your larger cake top and two sides and roll out circle of fondant that is at least 4 inches larger than your cake measurements added up. The rolled fondant should be about 1/8" thick.
Roll up fondant circle with your rolling pin, lift over larger cake and let it down centered on the cake, unrolling the pin as you come down. Press and smooth down lightly on sides all the way to the cake board. Use knife to cut the off extra fondant at cake bottom edge, allowing an extra 1/8-1/4". Use fingers to tuck in the bottom edge of fondant in towards the cake.
Repeat above steps for the smaller cake using the leftover fondant scraps from large cake. When done, flip smaller cake upside down in one hand and spread a layer of buttercream on the cake bottom with other hand. Flip right side up and carefully place centered on the bottom cake. The buttercream will hold top tier cake in place.
Because you were just holding the top cake upside down there will be fingerprints but no worry, just gently, gently smooth out with your hands, dusting with icing sugar if you feel any stickiness.
Divide the rest of the white fondant into sections according to how many colors you want to make. Add food coloring drop by drop, kneading the fondant until the color is evenly distributed. Cover fondant with cling wrap until needed.
Make the borders for your cakes to hide the bottom edges for both top and bottom tier. We did multicolored fondant balls in a pattern all the way around the bottom, sticking the balls on with a dab of buttercream. You can use cut out shapes or a long stripe all the way around.
Make the rest of your fondant decorations. Use cookie cutters, silicone molds or fondant presses. You can press with your fingers to give flat shapes more of a 3D shape. Or just sculpt the fondant to whatever shape you like, using clay sculpting tools to make the details. You can use fondant to make pretty much anything with a bit of time and effort.
Stick finished fondant decorations onto fondant covered cake with a dab or two of buttercream or water. Add on some edible pearls for accent or a dash of edible glitter.
Yeah, you're done with your fabulous fondant cake! Get ready for the oohs and aahs, or, if needed, you can keep the fondant cake at room temperature until ready to surprise the birthday girl or boy. Just don't put the cake in the fridge. You can store the cake at a cool room temperature for up to a 5 days. Just be sure to keep in the cake keeper. Happy Fondant Days!
Decorously Decorated at The Hong Kong Cookery:
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