Up To My Elbows in Marshmallows!

Anyone who uses fondant knows that its not cheap!  I had heard some people saying that you can make your own fondant out of marshmallows.  So, I bought big bags of marshmallows and confectioners' sugar and commenced attempting to make fondant.  You have to melt the marshmallows until they turn into a very sticky fluff.  Then you have to grease down your counter very well, put a huge pile of confectioners' sugar on the counter and make a well in it.  Then you pour the melted marshmallow into the well.  I colored the melted marshmallows first because I figured that would be easier than trying to add color after it was made.  I greased up my hands, too.  The marshmallow was so sticky it was really hard to knead.  I had to knead it for probably about half an hour to get all the confectioners' sugar worked into it and get it to the right consistency.  It was a lot of work and once the mixture got stiffer it took a lot of elbow grease to keep kneading it.  I ended up using it on a birthday cake for my mother-in-law.  I worked OK, but it didn't have as smooth a look as store bought fondant.  It does have a better taste than most store bought fondants.  I decorated the cake with white fondant polka dots and a white fondant/gum paste bow.

A Rose By Any Other Name...

Although much more time consuming and difficult to make, gum paste flowers are my favorite!  They have such a delicate look--they look almost real!  There are many steps to create most gum paste flowers, but its almost a throwback to childhood and play dough.  Its a very creative process, and one that I really enjoy.

Gum paste roses on top of a wedding cake.

Pink gum paste rose

Gum paste carnation with lustre dust

Happy Birthday to You...

My next project was to make a birthday cake for a friend's birthday.  I had just learned how to make butter cream roses that week, so I made a chocolate cake and decorated it with peach colored roses.  There are little dots in green and peach on the side to tie in all the colors.

Filled Cupcakes Galore!

Our next project was filled cupcakes.  We learned how to fill our cupcakes with tastiness!  I made chocolate cupcakes and filled them with a peanut butter cream filling.  Lori made pumpkin cupcakes and filled them with a cream cheese frosting.  We thought we might be making cupcakes for our friend's upcoming wedding, so we decided to make a large number of cupcakes for our church potluck as a run-through.  We ended up with about 6 dozen cupcakes.  As I mentioned previously, we hadn't done much decorating previously.  We spent hours squeezing out buttercream flowers onto our cupcakes.  My forearms were sooo sore the next day!  Our cupcakes were a big hit at potluck, though!

How We Got Started

My friend Lori and I had talked many times about taking a cake decorating class, we just never seemed to get around to it.  That is, we didn't get around to it until Lori volunteered us to make the wedding cake for our friend's wedding.  And we only had two and a half months until the wedding!  We quickly signed up for cake decorating classes at Michael's.  I had no previous experience with decorating cakes.  My friend, Lori, has been making delicious cakes for a while, but had never taken a decorating class.  So we embarked on our journey to Confection Perfection.

The first cake I decorated in class.

Lori decorating her first cake in class.