THE GREAT CUPCAKE TRILOGY PART 3: FUN WITH FONDANT

Fondant seems to be the quite the rage these days.  With all these cake decorating shows, it's become a key element that looks really fun to work with.  I've always wanted to work with fondant, just to see what it's like, so when given an opportunity to play with my food and use up an entire bag of marshmallows I thought Hey, why not?

INGREDIENTS:

1/4 cup butter, softened

16 oz mini marshmallows

4 tbsp water

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 lbs confectioner's sugar

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large microwave-safe bowl, microwave marshmallows on high for about 30 seconds.  That's right.  MICROWAVE A WHOLE PACKAGE OF MARSHMALLOWS ON HIGH.  Welcome to my inner child's dream come true.  If you thought nuking Peeps was bomb, stop reading immediately and go do this.

2. Add water and vanilla and stir in until the mixture is smooth.  If the mixture cools too fast, you can transfer it to double boiler or a metal bowl over a pot of boiling water until warmed.

3. Slowly beat in sugar a cup at a time, until you have a sticky dough.

4. Rub your hands thoroughly with butter and knead the dough on a work surface covered with sugar.  Keep adding sugar as you knead until fondant is firm, smooth, and no longer sticky to the touch.

5. Form fondant into a ball, wrap tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.  

6. To use, roll out onto a surface covered in confectioners' sugar.

Aaah. But yer not done yet.  You need something to stick the fondant to the cake.  Answer: A simple buttercream frosting:

FROSTING INGREDIENTS:

1 stick butter

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 lb confectioners' sugar

milk for consistency

FROSTING DIRECTIONS:

1. Cream butter and vanilla.

2. Add sugar in increments.  Add milk for desired consistency.

3. Frost the cupcakes enough to get the fondant to stick -- nothing fancy, just down and dirty.  

Unfortunately my food dye went MIA, so had to get creative.  Fun with stars and colored sugar!  And who doesn't like an M&M?  But pretty doesn't mean delicious.  Let me give you the skinny on this: I'd never made fondant before this.  I'd never worked with it.  I'd never even tasted it.  Consider this my maiden voyage.  The downside: I can't speak to whether this is a great fondant in any kind of context.  The upside: I can be totally objective.  This fondant didn't work well with these cupcakes and was kind of overwhelming, more in texture than in flavor.  For a layer cake, however, I think it would probably be a good match.  Never having worked with fondant, I also probably rolled it out too thick.

Official Grade for Fondant: B

Epilogue: 

My thoughts on this cupcake overall?  Meh.  Coulda done much better.  Sooo important to edit and let simple things be simple and good.  On the other hand, I'm glad to have tried this so I'll know what to do (and not to do) in the future.  Next time I'd make the chocolate cupcake recipe with my mom's buttercream frosting and leave it at that.  

Official Grade for Cupcake: C

Official Grade for Learning Experience: A