Category: CAKES

[print_this]Recipe: Sugar Paste / Fondant

Summary: A simple fondant recipe that was silky smooth and fun to use. minimally adapted from ‘Essential Guide to Cake Decorating’ by Alex Barker

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:

• 3 tbsp liquid glucose, warmed {I used Solar, an Indian brand}
• 1 egg white {or 20g egg white powder reconstituted according to maunfacturer instructions}
• 400g icing sugar

Method:

1. Place egg white in a large bowl, whip lightly with fork and then then stir in the liquid glucose. {It tends to harden very fast in winter}
2. Add the icing sugar bit by bit and gradually work in with a wooden spoon until it begins to form a paste. Gently knead into a ball.
3. On a very clean surface, knead it until smooth and pliable. Wrap with cling-wrap if not using immediately.
4. To colour, take small portions, or as required, ans knead in a few drops of the colour as desired. Keep the remaining fondant wrapped in clingwrap at all times.
5. On a very clean surface dusted with icing sugar, roll out the fondant quite thin. Then cut into shapes with plunger cutters or hand make roses.
6. I fastened the flowers etc with egg white, though the book says to use royal icing.

Recipe: Vanilla Bean Buttermilk Pound Cake with Vanilla Buttercream

Summary: A lighter version of the classic pound cake, the Tea Rose Fondant Cake is  sandwiched with a light confetti buttercream, and makes a delicious base for the fondant art.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes {including cooling time, and time to make fondant decorations etc} 
Ingredients:

• Vanilla Pound Cake
• 240g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 150g unsalted butter, room temperature
• 275g vanilla sugar
• 3 eggs
• 130ml buttermilk {or substitute recipe below}
• 1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• To make buttermilk substitute 
• Take 130ml milk at room temp; add 1 tsp white vinegar. Let it stand 5-10 minutes. When it curdles, it’s ready.
• Vanilla buttercream
• 100g unsalted butter, room temperature
• 225g icing sugar
• 50g low fat cream
• 1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
• 2 tbsp rainbow confetti {optional}
• Royal icing or egg white to secure fondant flowers etc onto cake.

Method:

1. Vanilla Buttermilk Pound Cake
2. Grease and flour the sides of a 7″ ring tin, or a 4″ round tin. Line the bottoms and sides with parchment paper.
3. Preheat the oven to 170C.
4. Sift the flour with the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Reserve.
5. Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract and scraped vanilla bean.
6. With beater on low add the flour and buttermilk alternately in three lots.
7. Divide the batter between the two tins.
8. Bake for 50-60 minutes till golden brown on top, and the tester comes out clean. {The smaller cake will get baked in 35-40 minutes}
9. Cool completely, then slice into two horizontally.
10. Vanilla butter-cream
11. Beat the butter, vanilla bean and icing sugar until smooth and fluffy.
12. Gradually add the low fat cream and whip to desired consistency.
13. You can add more {or less} depending on how stiff you want the butter-cream.
14. Assembling
15. Sandwich the cakes with a light spread of butter-cream with the confetti stirred in.
16. Give both cakes a thin coat of butter-cream to provide a base for the fondant.
17. Note: Use squeaky clean hands, counter, rolling pin etc when handling sugar paste/fondant as it is white and shows impurities very easily. 
18. Take about 1/3rd of the fondant {If it is too hard, then briefly, heat it in the microwave wrapped in cling-wrap  for 10 seconds. {Keep the remaining fondant well wrapped else it will dry out.}
19. Sprinkle the work surface with icing sugar, and roll the fondant out thin. {I kept it quite thin to keep the sugar intake a little lower}.
20. Gently transfer it onto the 7″ cake and press into place. I got a few creases but covered most up with flowers and leaves. Handle gently or it will tear. Trim the edges around the base.
21. Take 1/2 the remaining fondant and repeat with the smaller cake.
22. Place the smaller cake on top of the bigger one.
23. Take bits of fondant, one bit at a time, and colour them with liquid colour as desired. Using plunger cutters or your hands, make flowers, leaves, roses etc as desired.
24. Roll any remaining scraps and using a fluted or plain pastry cutter cut out ribbons to cover up the bottoms edges.
25. Use either royal icing or egg white to stick the sugar paste flowers, leaves or ribbons onto the cake.
26. Note: I used the microwave {10 seconds, high} quite often as the fondant kept getting hard as the weather was freezing cold at 6C. 

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