Easy Christmas Wreath Cake

A fun, easy Christmas cake for you today... a Holly Leaf Wreath Cake.
(Click here if you'd like to sign up to make this cake with me Sunday, Dec. 16 in Crystal.)

What You Need:
Any round cake, iced or covered with fondant
Green Fondant*
Red Fondant*
Holly Leaf Cutter(s)

*Note: I used my Homemade Marshmallow Fondant for this. If you want the leaves to hold their shape for a long period of time, you may want to add either 1 tsp. of Gum Tex or mix in an equal amount of Gum Paste.

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Easy Spring Blossom Cupcakes

It's spring. Even here in Minnesota, the flowers are already blooming... both outside, and on cupcakes!

What You Need:
Cupcakes
Fondant (I used homemade marshmallow fondant)
Icing coloring (or buy colored fondant)
Small Roseor Flower Cutters
Sugar Pearl Sprinkles
Rolling Pin
Parchment Paper
Extra powdered sugar to "dust" the parchment paper or rolling mat
Food-safe paintbrush with water

*Note: Click the links on the cutters or sprinkles to go to my Amazon.com link where you can purchase them or just see what I used since I skimped on the photos.

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The Easiest Way to Frost a Cupcake

One question that I hear from a lot of people is "how can I frost a cupcake, and make it look nice and smooth?"
Any way but with a spatula or knife is my honest answer.

You'll notice that in any of my cupcake projects, I never ice the cupcakes with a spatula. It's just a real pain, never looks smooth, and is not pretty.

So, what is the easiest way to frost a cupcake??

With the icing swirl...

Or with a fondant cut-out.


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Super Easy Valentine's Cake

I made this cake a few years ago, when I was pretty new to fondant. Even so, the total decorating time was less than 45 minutes. It's so easy. All you need is fondant and nesting heart cutters, and you're set!
(Sorry there are no photos here of the process, it was a few years ago, and I just ran out of time to recreate it.)

What You Need:
One 8-9" cake, iced
Approx. 1.5 pounds white fondant*
Red Gel Food Coloring
Nesting Heart Fondant Cutters

*One box of Wilton fondant (the most readily available is 1.5 lbs. But you can click this link to see my "Great Fondant Comparison" where I put 3 store-bought and 2 homemade fondants to the test).

Start by covering the cake with fondant. Then, color about a golf ball-sized piece of fondant red, and another pink. Roll the fondant to about 1/8" thick. Cut one heart with the largest cutter. Position the medium-sized cutter inside of the large cutter, cut out that one, leaving the large heart outline, and then cut the smallest heart out of the medium. Alternate the colors of the outlines to create the patterns you see here. If necessary, you can brush the backs of the hearts with a little clear vanilla extract to help them stick.

This cake would also look great if you just ice the cake with your favorite icing, and put the fondant cut-outs on that. Then you'd be talking about a really, really easy cake!

Click the Links below to find:
Recipes for icing, fondant, cake and more
Other Fondant Decorating Ideas

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Easy Hawaiian or Beach-Themed Cupcakes

One of the cake-y things I do is that I teach cake, cupcake, cookie decorating at birthday parties and workshops around the Twin Cities. A mom recently contacted me to do a "Hawaiian-themed" cupcake party with fondant for her daughter. The project needed to be simple enough for 12-year-olds to do.

These are what I came up with. Nothing is too hard or requires many hard-to-find supplies to create.

What You Need (for the decorations):
1 box Wilton Neon Fondant
1 package Wilton Gum Paste (optional)
Large Round Cutter
Small Round Cutter (or any icing tip)
Large & Small Rose or Blossom Cutter
Shortening (for greasing surface)
Parchment or Waxed Paper, or Roll & Cut Mat
Tapered Spatula or small knife
Food-Safe Paintbrush
Rolling Pin

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Fondant Snowflake Cake

Isn't it so peaceful, this sparkly little snowflake cake? It's what a snowy day is supposed to look like.

If you want to make this cake with me, I will be teaching classes at a few community education locations around the Twin Cities that will teach you how to cover a cake with fondant and decorate it like this. A perfect wintertime activity with a few friends! (See below for class information.)

If you're ready to go it alone...

What You Need:
8" round cake baked & cooled
2-3 cups icing
Spatula
Approx. 20-24 oz. white fondant*
Wilton Pearl Dust (white, silver or blue)
Blue Gel Coloring
Clear Vanilla Extract
Rolling Pin
Vegetable Shortening (to grease rolling surface)
Roll & Cut Mat or Parchment Paper for rolling fondant
Food-Safe Paintbrush
Snowflake Cookie Cutters

*Note on Fondant: Please click these links to see my posts about
Making Fondant from Scratch
Making Marshmallow Fondant
Which Fondant is Best for Cakes

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Fondant Strawberries

I have a feeling we will see these cute little strawberries a few times next spring when it's actually strawberry season. They're easy to make, and I think they're just adorable.

And they look great on top of these Chocolate-Strawberry Mini-Cakes

What You Need:
Red Fondant
Green Fondant
Strawberry Flavoring
Powdered Sugar (for dusting surface)
Parchment Paper
Optional:
Gum Paste modeling stick or toothpicks
Small Blossom or Star Cookie or Fondant Cutter
Clear Vanilla and food-safe paintbrush

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Pretty Pumpkin Cake

I was supposed to make this into a jack-o-lantern cake, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I was so happy that it actually turned out that I had to leave it as a pretty pumpkin. I think this would be an awesome addition or substitution for a pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving.

What You Need:
Pumpkin Cake Recipe*
Pumpkin-Shaped Panor bundt pan
Cream Cheese Icing
1.5 lbs. fondant colored orange
Small amount fondant colored green (about the size of a tennis ball)

*Note: The pan I used, "The Great Pumpkin Pan" uses 10 cups of batter. That's about 1 1/2 times my pumpkin cake recipe.

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DIY Pumpkin BabyCakes

My boys are a little different than probably most kids when it comes to birthday cakes. We start talking about their birthday cake(s) in about June. Their birthday is in October. (They're twins, so yes, they have the same birthday, and so far, the same kind of birthday cake.)

This year, my Charley (seen here sniffing his birthday cake selection) decided that he wanted a fondant cake. Kid loves fondant.

Their birthday party also happened to be on the same day I was scheduled to do a local news promotion of some fondant classes that I'm teaching this fall. So, I went a little overboard. I wanted to use the project for both the news and for their party.

I had the "brilliant" idea of letting the kids decorate their own cakes. So, that's what we did.

These are the results.
(A tutorial on how to do the nice, grown-up pumpkin version of the cake will come next week.)

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A Halloween Visit to Fox 9

Here's a video of my recent appearance on the local news. I always enjoy visiting Tom and Karen... even if we talk too much to get our projects finished.

In the Kitchen: Cake Decoration: MyFoxTWINCITIES.com

Click the Links Below to See:
Other Fondant Decorating Ideas
How to Cover a Cake with Fondant
What is the Best Fondant to Use?
Other Fall, Halloween and Thanksgiving Decorating Ideas

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Fall Leaves Fondant Classes

Interested in learning about fondant? I will be teaching classes about how to make this very cake at four community education locations around the Twin Cities this fall. Click the links below to access the websites and register for the classes.

Thursday, Nov. 3 at 6:00pm: Eagle View Elementary School - Elko/New Market

Wednesday, Nov. 9 at 6:00pm: White Bear Lake High School- South Campus

Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 6:00pm: South St. Paul High School

Thursday, Nov. 17 at 6:00pm: John Glenn Middle School - Maplewood

Each location has a different pricing structure. Some include supplies in the tuition cost, some charge a lower tuition, but you have to pay for supplies. At each location, you'll bring a cake and icing (for some you need to bring a rolling pin), and I will provide the fondant and coloring, etc. Any questions, please ask!!

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Tie Dye Cake (aka How to Marblize Fondant)

Okay, so I don't think this is the world's cutest cake, but my boys are really in to tie-dye, and I had some leftover colored fondant from these beach ball cupcakes, so we decided to make a tie-dye cake. Plus, this will show you very vibrantly how to marbelize fondant.

What You Need:
Fondant in various colors
Iced cake, on a board the same size as the cake
Rolling pin
Rolling mat
-or parchment or waxed paper and ruler
Shortening
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The Great Fondant Comparison

It's the biggest question I get about fondant whether I'm teaching class, or just talking cake with people: Why does fondant taste so bad? Well, I don't really have the answer to that. But I know that there are better and worse kinds of fondant. So, I set out to find out which fondant tastes best. Which fondant is easiest to work with. And which fondant is just the best there is.
(If you want to skip through the details, and just see the winner(s), click here.)

I hosted The Great Fondant Comparison. A highly un-scientific fondant taste test in my home with 7 friends (and  myself) doing the tasting.

I started out with five 'contenders.' I bought three national brands (Pettinice, Satin Ice and Wilton), and made two myself (one from scratch, one with marshmallows). I covered a 6" round cake with each kind of fondant, and made small cut-outs for my taste-testers to try it off of the cake as well.

I then had my testers grade each fondant on appearance, taste, texture and give an overall score. I graded each on its ease of preparation, ease of kneading/rolling, ease/success on the cake, and its cost/availability. Each category got a score from 1-5. 1 meant bad and 5 meant great.

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Which Fondant Is Best?

This post is a shortcut, a cheat sheet to my Great Fondant Comparison post... in which I detail my taste test to discover which fondant available to me is the best tasting, easiest to use, and best looking on a cake.
To read the entire post, including seeing the score sheets from each of my 8 taste testers, please click here.

In short, I covered each of 5 cakes with fondant. I purchased three brands, Pettinice, Satin Ice and Wilton, and I made two myself, a homemade scratch fondant, and a homemade marshmallow fondant. Below you will find the winners of each category and the final winner. (Again, all of the scores and details can be found here.)

Categories/Winners:
Ease of Preparation: Wilton 
Cost/ Availability: Homemade marshmallow fondant 
Ease of Kneading/ Rolling: Satin Ice
Ease/ Success on Cake:Tie between Homemade scratch and Satin Ice
Appearance: Satin Ice
Taste: Homemade scratch fondant
Texture: Homemade scratch fondant
Overall:Tie between homemade scratch fondant and Satin Ice
THE WINNER IS SATIN ICE!!!!

In the interest of full disclosure: NO ONE paid me anything or provided me with anything for this test. I am a Wilton cake decorating instructor, but they didn't give me anything either.

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How To Cover a Cake with Fondant

Even though I teach this skill about every 2 months or so in class, I have to tell you that I always get nervous when I have to cover a cake with fondant. It's not that it's so hard, it's mostly that you don't have a lot of room for error, and I am terrible at lining things up. But once I get it done, I do breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy the pretty, smooth covering on my cake.

What You Need
1 cake covered in icing*
Appropriate amount of rolled fondant (click the link for a chart from Wilton.)
Shortening (to grease the rolling surface)
Rolling mat (or parchment or waxed paper taped to the counter top)
Rolling pin
Optional:
Cardboard circle the same size as your cake to set cake on 
Bowl or pan to raise cake
Turntable

*Note: The icing does not need to be perfect to cover the cake with fondant, but if you have a dark cake (like chocolate) and you're covering with white or pastel fondant, those big crumbs can show through.

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Homemade Rolled Fondant

I start this post with a warning. This stuff is not easy to make. It's not exactly hard to make, it's just definitely not easy. I also reiterate my recommendation that you try working with a store-bought fondant a few times before you make your own so that you know what consistency you're looking for.

What You Need
1 Tbsp. + 1 tsp. water*
1 Tbsp. powdered gelatine
1/3 cup corn syrup
1 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. glycerine
2 tsp. clear vanilla
pinch of salt
1 1/2 - 2 lbs. powdered sugar (approx. 6-8 cups)

*Note: if you're not interested in making white-white fondant, substitute half-and-half or heavy cream for the water here. You'll get a little more "ivory" colored fondant, but it's richer and yummier.
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Marshmallow Fondant - MMF

If you've never worked with fondant before, making it yourself can be a challenge. I always recommend that my students use store-bought fondant a few times before trying to do their own because then you will know what kind of consistency you're looking for.

What you need
This recipe is for a small batch. It makes about a pound to a pound and a half of fondant. If you want enough to cover a cake, you'll need to double it.
1 10.5-oz. bag of mini-marshmallows
1 Tbsp. water
1 tsp. clear vanilla extract
1 tsp. clear butter extract 
2-3 cups of powdered sugar 
butter or shortening to grease 

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Fondant 101

This week is going to be all about fondant here on the Beki Cook's Cakes Blog.

Fondant is everywhere. ALL of the cake shows use - in my opinion - entirely too much fondant. But if you talk to most people, they have rarely, if ever, eaten the stuff. They talk about peeling it off of the cake before eating it. So, what's the point?! Well, it is beautiful! And if you're at all artistic, it's amazing the kinds of 'sculptures' you can do with it.

This post serves as a kind of introduction to fondant. Although, I will recommend that if you really don't know much about fondant, but would like to get into it, take a real class! It's nice to have someone who knows what they're talking about to answer your questions along the way, and help correct you if there's something you misunderstand. Check out your local craft store, kitchen store or community education catalog. I teach Wilton cake decorating classes at JoAnn Fabrics in Edina, Minnesota. I also teach other cake classes of my own through community education programs around the East Metro of the Twin Cities.

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Beach Ball Cupcakes

These cupcakes were made for a good friend's daughters' birthday party. I liked them, and wanted to make them again.

What you need
Standard-sized cupcakes
1 recipe Marshmallow Fondant
Blue, Yellow & Red coloring
- (or one box primary-colored fondant and one box white fondant)
Biscuit cutter or round cookie or fondant cutter, a little larger diameter as your cupcake
Rolling pin
Waxed paper or a rolling mat
Shortening for spreading on rolling surface
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