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. Marshmallow fondant we make in the store is thirty two ounces of marshmallows, powdered sugar fifteen cups sifted, and we also have our special ingredient gum tragacanth which is a plant based gum that when added to the fondant it gives it more elasticity and more bend. So we want to start by adding half of the sugar, seven and a half cups. And you don’t have to be terribly exact with the measuring of the powdered sugar. You may need more sugar on more humid days and maybe some more water on drier days. You also want to sift in three quarters, you don’t need to have the gum tragacanth powder. The fondant will work perfectly fine. We just find that it gives us more elasticity when making decorations. Half your sugar, and then you want to add your melted marshmallows. So you want three bags, we use mini marshmallows. We find that they melt a little bit better than the big ones. Half a cup of water, you can microwave them and they’ll go into our big bowl. So once you have your marshmallows melted give them a good stir. Make sure there’s no remaining lumps. They go over your sugar. We’re using our twenty quart mixer and bowl with the hook attachment. You can make this at home and just go ahead and put some vegetable shortening all over your table, all over your hands, and you can knead it in right on the table on the counter top. Then we have another seven and a half cups of powdered sugar and we want to sift that again. So you may need to add a little bit more powdered sugar if the fondant is a little bit sticky. I would add a cup at a time. You want it to be a pliable dough to work with and not too sticky. You should be able to grab a piece of it and play with it without it sticking to your hands too much so I think we have a good batch. I have a little sugar on the table just to keep it from sticking but you just want to knead it into one nice big ball of dough and it should hold together really nice like this. You want to give your ball of fondant a good coat of vegetable shortening and wrap it in plastic a couple times. Make sure it stays moist. You want to plan to make your fondant a day ahead of time or at least the night before. It needs at least eight or ten hours to set up and be the right texture.
