I worked on this cute little cake this weekend. The cake was a boxed Funfetti cake….by request. Which makes things way easier sometimes, a lot less work baking at least. The frosting was a chocolate buttercream and vanilla buttercream.
I wanted to try a new technique this time for the trees and the letters called pastillage. It’s edible but dries quickly and makes the figures very stiff. It was interesting but I broke one of the letters and didn’t have time to mix up a new batch. So I did a 50/50 of gum paste and fondant. I made sure I rolled the letters and trees out pretty thin so they would dry more quickly. It worked pretty well and wasn’t quite as delicate as the pastillage (I’m not sure that I did it 100% correctly because it was brittle and crumbly when it dried).
Then I had to figure out how to get those palm fronds on the tree, not to mention coconuts and bananas. I didn’t want to mix up a batch of royal icing just for a few small pieces so had to research and find a recipe for an edible glue, something with ingredients that I had on hand, no time to run to the store. I finally found a recipe for 2 tablespoons meringue powder and 2 tablespoons water. It worked great! Nice tip to keep in the back of my head next time I’m trying to glue pieces together. It even seemed to work pretty well for the straight fondant pieces, you just need to use it sparingly because it did start dissolving some of the fondant.
The animals are straight fondant and you know, it’s not as easy as it looks to make flat animals. I think it’s easier to make 3-D figures. Trying to cut the shapes out of soft fondant takes some patience that’s for sure.
It took me longer to make the cake than I had initially anticipated, but I think it’s because I was trying a new technique. I just need to learn how to smooth my buttercream, it was a mess!
A Little of This and a Little of That 