rainbow cake

so you may be wondering, what kind of cake did we cover with our homemade fondant.  we made a RAINBOW cake!!!

how fun is that?!?!?  i’ve seen this on quite a few other blogs but my favorite is i am baker.  check out her rainbow cake. simply adorable!  it’s really just white cake with a bit of food coloring (between making the fondant and cake, i felt like i was in a sea of food coloring and sugar all day, haha).  but i love the vibrant colors and it’s just so cute.  it totally looks like a little kid cake, actually my boyfriend described it as a cake for kindergarteners but still tammy and i loved it!  though i guess sometimes we do act like 5 year olds.  ooops!  🙂

       

p.s. this ended up being a whole lot of cake.  so unless you’re making this for a party i would suggest maybe using 2 boxes of cake mix instead of 3 like we did.  oh well lesson learned. 

(more…)

homemade fondant

today my good friend tammy, came over for yet another awesome baking adventure.  we always try out new recipes together that we would be a little afraid to try out alone.  this time, we thought it would be fun to make a cake and decorate it with homemade fondant.  this was our first time making and using fondant.  well i had used store bought fondant probably 10 years ago but that was it.  we didn’t really have a design in mind and just kind of winged it.  this is what we came up with…

it was too funny working on this cake.  first, it took forever to color the fondant (do you know how much dye goes into black fondant? too much!).  then when we rolled it out it got stuck to the table and then we rolled it out too big and it left a ton of wrinkles and tears all over the cake.  what a mess!  kerry vincent, from food network challenge would not be pleased.  tammy and i were in a sugary disaster zone and now i know why chef duff, the ace of cakes gets paid the big bucks.  working with fondant is hard!

but you know what, it was so much fun!!!  plus i learned a lot about working with fondant and i can’t wait to try out other designs.  though i don’t know when i’ll be making another big ol’ cake again.  i think i’ll stick to cupcakes and making cute little fondant designs for them instead.

now, more about homemade fondant.  this stuff tastes sooo much better than the store bought kind, it’s a whole lot cheaper, and it’s fairly easy to make.  what more can you ask for? well, i guess you could ask to not have to slather your hands in crisco cause that was pretty gross.  but still, homemade fondant is the best!

first microwave the marshmallows and water in 30 second intervals, stirring after each interval, until melted…

  

then pour it into the stand mixer bowl with all of the powered sugar and mix and mix and mix…

  

next, knead the fondant until it’s smooth.  go tammy go!

after you’re done kneading the fondant you can color it all one color or divide it to color into multiple colors.  we dyed one batch pink and split the other batch into purple, teal, and black …

now it’s time to roll out the fondant.  it should be about 1/8 in thick.  use the fondant to cover your crumb coated cake.  try to make it smooth.  it definitely shouldn’t be all lumpy like ours.  haha.

  

it’s decorating time!  do you like my funny bow?  hahaha.  i like tammy’s pretty stars.

  

yay for tammy & miki baking adventures!!!

(more…)