My First Fondant Cake

In just under two months my Little Bear is going to be 1 year old.  While I'm very excited that he's growing  up (please read: sleeping better, feeding himself, and becoming more independent). I am also going to miss holding a sweet sleeping bundle, or watching him lay on his back and play with his feet.  While I look forward to him saying Mommy for the first time (and several hundred times per day after that), I will long to hear his small baby coos and babbles.  The uncertainty of whether or not there will be a baby number three makes this just a little bit harder.

On the bright side, birthdays = cake!  Usually I'm not into cake, and opt for cookies or brownies instead. However, on special occassions like birthdays, I love to whip up a delicious cake from scratch along with some tasty scratch icing.  I am slightly new to the scratch cake baking scene.  I've only ever made three varieties: Yellow, Strawberry (Scratch, that means no strawberry jello for color and flavor), and Carrot.  My favorite by far is Carrot cake with to-die-for cream cheese frosting : ).  For Munchkins first birthday I made him a basketball cake

This cake was a combination of a scratch carrot cake and a Duncan Hines carrot cake.  I just didn't have the energy to make both from scratch.  The bottom part was three layers and the basketball was cake baked in a bowl.  I also used canned and homemade cream cheese frosting.

Then for Munchkin's second birthday I made a train cake.  This was a combo cake too... I was up until 3am putting it together but I was very happy with the results.

My husband and I decided not to go so big for Little Bears birthday, 1. because I don't have the energy or want to do a big party. 2. He won't remember anyway and will enjoy a bigger party when he is 2. Even though we are not doing a big shindig, I do want to honor his special day with a special cake (and maybe one for smashing). My husbands birthday is the day before and he has been heavily hinting that he doesn't want to get short changed in the cake department. There goes my idea of one cake two names... Hehehe, oh well.

For my husband's cake I want to make something decadent. I haven't decided on a flavor but he's already had carrot and he really likes red velvet so i'll probably go with that (although it's not my favorite). I was thinking of adding a chocolate ganache between the layers just to kick it up a notch. These are some practice cupcakes I made.  Strawberry cake with chocolate ganache and strawberry buttercream frosting.

Little bear will most likely get a caramel cake or Italian cream cake. I really want to dec it out so I'm going to try my hand at fondant. I've been researching some techniques and recipes and learned you can make fondant with marshmallows. Yesterday, I ran to Walmart and picked up some supplies. I used a box cake to practice making my first fondant cake. Making the fondant wasn't has hard as I thought. It was more difficult trying to keep the boys occupied while I worked. 

If you want to try it, all you need is:

8 ounces mini marshmallows

1 pound confectioners sugar

2 tbsp water

Food coloring or flavored extracts (optional) 

 First melt your marshmallows with water in a microwave safe bowl.  

I only had blue and yellow food coloring left in the house, so I chose to go with a white, blue, and brown look.  The brown is just cocoa powder.  I added my cocoa powder to the liquid marshmallows then began adding the confectioners sugar.  In my research I found it referred to as powdered sugar, pulverized sugar, as well as icing sugar.

Once it gets almost impossible to mix, turn it out onto a heavily powdered work surface and continue adding in the sugar until its not sticky any more.  I found that if you greased the surface then dusted with sugar it didn't stick nearly as much.  Please note, this is a very messy process.

Sorry, I couldn't get this picture to rotate.

Just outside the picture above, Munchkin is standing there repeatedly saying "want taste fonnan".  LOL!!! 

After I thought I had added enough sugar I kneaded it a bit more on a surface greased with crisco.  Then I covered it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge until later (basically nap time).

Next I rolled it out on some wax paper.  I read that you should use a plastic rolling pin for fondant, but I only have a wooden one.  Being the clever gal that I am (wink wink) I covered my rolling pin with wax paper too.  It was pretty easy to roll out.  Then I picked up the whole thing, fondant and wax paper together and placed it over my cake.  Then just peeled off the wax paper.  I had already given it a good smooth crumb coat.   Trim the extra with a knife or pizza cutter and have fun decorating.

My First Fondant Cake!

I learned a lot making it and if you look closely you can see some little imperfections.  I hope to make one more practice cake before Little Bears birthday.  I'll try and roll the fondant a bit thinner next time.  After dinner I let Munchkin sample the practice cakes.  While he was devouring it, he said

"Mommy, dis is de-wi-shus!!"

Happy Birthday Munchkin

Munchkin turned two last week.  The time is flying at lightening speed.  He's really into cars, trucks, and trains, pretty much anything with wheels.  Since he's only two and mommy gets to decide, I went with trains (mostly Thomas and Friends).  As soon as I decided on a train themed birthday, I started researching any and everything I could about train parties.  The result: an awesome party, that my little man loved.  Although he probably won't remember it when he is older.  All the hard work, time, and money spent was totally worth it.

The first thing on my list of things to do was make a train cake.  After days of searching the web, I stumbled on an idea for a cupcake train.  I combined a few ideas from different sites and came up with a cool cake that the birthday boy and guest loved. Last year I made him a basketball cake.  Both ideas came from parenting.com .  The directions are easy to follow, and they have lots of cool ideas.  This is my finished product.  It took way longer than I thought to actually decorate and put together.  I used graham crackers and royal icing to hold to the cupcakes.  I made my own cream cheese frosting since I don't like any of the canned varieties. Chocolate Twizzlers and crushed Oreos and more graham crackers made the track.  I finished it off with coconut flakes dyed green.

While searching for really cool train cakes I got an idea to make a cardboard train for the kids to play in.  I pieced it together with used diaper boxes (we have tons in the garage) along with leftover boxes from Christmas.  Lots of tape, glue, paint, and even some paper mache' later... I had a Thomas look alike I dubbed the Munchkin Express.  I love that the only cost was paint and red duct tape.

I decorated the party room with train signs, and a train track on the floor.  All of these ideas can be googled.  I found myself getting carried away with all of the cool things to try or even thinking I can do that better and for way less money.  This train party became my obsession.  Great for the outcome, not so great for my body.  I stayed up till 4am every night that week except one only to wake up to feed my Little Bear at 5.  

FYI - the electric tape I used left a shadowy residue on my carpet.  I had to scrub it off with my Oxy Spray (love it).

It was all totally worth it.  My little guy had such a good time at his party.  I'm already dreaming up ideas for his next party... I hope he still likes race cars next year : ).