Transcript
Hi, my name is Amanda Oakleaf. I am owner, head baker, decorator of Amanda Oakleaf Cakes in Winthrop, Massachusetts where we do custom cakes of all kinds — wedding cakes, birthday cakes, sculpted cakes. Anything you can think of we can make it into a cake. And today I will be talking to you about cake decorating. So next we’re going to cover a cake in fondant. We have a cake already crumb coated. We use the same technique for butter creaming the cake. Just a little bit thinner, and it’s okay if some of the cake shows through as long as it’s nice and square and level we’re all set. So that’s our cake. We’ve had it in the fridge for a few hours. That helps it to stiffen up a little bit. The fondant we have already softened. If you have it sitting overnight then you might need to throw it in the microwave for a minute or two to really soften up and knead it. So you need a little bit of corn starch. You could use powdered sugar as well but we find that corn starch is more silky and it’s easier to work with. With some on your table cover the bottom of it and you want to press it into a circle to start with because you want a big circle to cover the cake. So you want to use the rolling pin to roll it out into a circle. You don’t want to get it too thin. Maybe between a quarter and an eighth inch thickness. Make sure its not stuck to the table. If there’s any air bubbles from kneading it you can go ahead and take your knife and just make a little slit and then push the air out. This one looks pretty smooth. Then you want to lift it up and center it right over the cake. You want to unfold the ruffles a little bit. Keep it flat. Then you want to start at the top with your fondant smoother, and you want to press out any air bubbles from the top of the cake. Press them out to the side. Then work your way around the side, pressing the air down and out. Once it’s stuck to the side use your fondant smoother so you don’t have finger marks, and then keep it straight up and down and that will help adhere the fondant to the side of the cake. We’re also going to cover the base, the cardboard base. I like to score, you can feel where the cardboard is underneath, just go with your finger where it is and then you can take a pizza cutter and cut right along the edge. And there you have it. You want to knead back the rest of your fondant back into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap until you’re ready to make decorations.
