Playing with my food again-episode 5, part 3

This is a 3 part saga and you can see the other installments
here
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/10/playing-with-my-food-again-episode-5.html

and here
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/10/playing-with-my-food-again-episode-5_27.html

After we had the fence and the tree placed, we added the house. It looked good so we added some tombstones.

I marbled black and white fondant together and cut out the shape with my blade. I used the green tool(the one with a pointed end) and drew around the outside. I used the knife ended one to make cracks in one of the stones.  I "wrote" RIP on the front of one.

The leaves you see are pushed in to one of the leaves on the floral push mold. I did several different kinds of leaves to change it up a little. The leaf you see is really one of the flowers though. ;-D

We covered a cupcake with fondant and placed it on the end of the skewer and on top of the trunk. If it is a long skewer you have to cut it with cutters so I will not stick out the top of the cupcake.

We placed some of the frosting on the back of the leaves and "glued" them to the cupcake covered in fondant.

I also took 1" balls of orange fondant that I had colored myself with gel food coloring which you can also get at Pila's, made lines all the way around them with the knife-like green tool and with the pointed-end tool I poked a hole in the top where the lines met.
I took a very small ball (3/16") of chocolate fondant and rolled it into a small teardrop and placed it in the hole in the top of the pumpkin for a stem.
I then roll 2- 3/16" balls of green fondant in to teardrops and flattened them for each pumpkin and made leaves. I then placed those on top of each pumpkin with a tiny tiny bit of water (remember from previous episodes, that water breaks down fondant), to "glue" them in place.

Here you can see how we are painting the inside of the windows with chocolate frosting so that pink marshmallows do not show. Pink marshmallows do not really go well with this cake. ;-D

I decided to put in a little ghost in the doorway.  I took a 1 1/2" ball of white and rolled it in to a teardrop with a rounded point and the on the thicker end, flatten it out, then add two small 1/2" balls of white fondant for the arms. Roll them in to teardrops and place the thick ends against the ghosty's body. I made a mark for the mouth withe pointed end tool and painted chocolate frosting eyes.

This is the cake after everything was added.

We brushed the leaves of the trees with the green metallic powder.
Pretty spooky, eh?

Here is a close up of the leaves.
I wonder if Duff is hiring?














This concludes the 5th episode.

Playing with my food again-episode 5, part 2

This is a continuing saga you can see the first installment here.
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/10/playing-with-my-food-again-episode-5.html


We frosted a 6"  double layer cake with chocolate frosting.

We extruded black fondant with the stainless steel Clay Extruder. I use the large trapezoid comes with disk set 1- M35155.

We extruded the full barrel of fondant and left them on the wax paper.

We cut 3 short ones (about 2")  and then a long one (about 3") sections. We used 4 long ones and placed them on the north, south, east and west section of the cake on the sides.
We placed the 3 short sections in each of the areas left. We spread them evenly apart.

Then I extruded a cord of black fondant and draped it between each of the black posts.

We cut out four of the heart looking flower petals in the Flower/Leaves cutter set and placed those a top each long post, points up. I used the petal in this clay project if you would like to see the shape of it

We brushed the wrought iron fence with silver pearl powder on one side of each post. Also a little of it on the cord.
You can see our tree in the foreground, with it's pink marshmallows inside.

We placed the tree trunk on the cake and press the skewer down through the marshmallows and in to the cake.

Stay tuned for part 3...

I have been playing with my food for a while and you can see the others...

Here

http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2009/04/playing-with-my-food.html

Here

http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/09/playing-with-my-food-again-episode-2.html

Here

http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/09/playing-with-my-food-again-episode-3.html

Here

http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/09/playing-with-my-food-again-episode-4.html

Playing with my food again-episode 5, part 1

I am playing with my food again and you can see the previous installments,
Here
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2009/04/playing-with-my-food.html
Here
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/09/playing-with-my-food-again-episode-2.html
Here
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/09/playing-with-my-food-again-episode-3.html
Here
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2010/09/playing-with-my-food-again-episode-4.html

This one is going to be about using those fabulous clay tools called Texture plates for your food. Not just clay tools anymore.
This got me to thinking, when I first started working with polymer clay in 1978, I use my ceramic tools and kitchen tools.
I think I can say I have come full circle to using my clay tools for food now.
I have learned that I do not put labels on my tools now. If I find it at a hardware store and it works, it is a tool. If I find it in nature and it works, it is a tool. Now, tools are everywhere!!!

I do suggest though that if you are going to use the texture plates for food that you get a new set. These are inexpensive and will be used over and over again if you are having as much fun playing with your food as I am.
They can also be used as large stamps, crayon rubbings, texturing plaster, texturing paint, or even cement and probably a lot more things than I can think of right now!

So we will play with the texture plates and then from there we will move in to the project Jodi and I made from this.
Just in time for the upcoming Halloween Holiday!

Links will take you to the corresponding page in my Hubby's on line store, http://www.clayfactory.net/. Thank you for supporting my family and myself.


I rolled out my fondant to about 1/8 " with the green roller.

Place the texture sheet over the rolled out fondant. I used texture sheet set M38004, this has the scale and the wood grain in it.
We are going to use both of them for this blog.

Press down on the roller and slide across the texture plate. You could roll it also, but I found that just pressing and sliding worked very well.
If you are going to roll the fondant in to the texture sheet then the roller has something to grab on to. It is easier to roll then.

This is how the fondant looks after the texture sheet is removed. I did not use anything on the fondant to resist the texture sheet, but you could use shortening or powdered sugar as a releasing agent.

Click on the picture for a larger view.

Here is the wood grain texture sheet. I used the chocolate fondant from Pila's Pantry, (this one is my all time favorite fondant, it tastes like tootsie rolls) and followed the instructions above to make this sheet of wood grained texture.

I then used some matt brown pigment I also bought from Pila's to highlight the texture of the wood grain. Put some on your finger as if it was pearl-ex and spread on the sheet of fondant wood grain. Or you could use a soft brush to place it on the fondant. The soft brush will though cover the whole surface not just the high spots.

Here I have tried to get the variation in the color by using the powdered pigment.  You can click on the picture to see a larger version of this picture.

I also brushed on some of the Pearl pigment for food, this one is called gold dust.

Fun, fun, fun!

We then took a bamboo skewer and placed three large marshmallows on it. Wrapped the wood grain fondant around them and sealed the seam with a little water. I let the bottom crack instead of cutting it off and featured the cracks as roots. 




We put this aside and continued on to the next part.

With the scale texture plate, some black fondant and the instructions on how to roll out the fondant and tah-dah, some scale textured black fondant. We then high-lighted that whole sheet with silver powder to get this. Click on the picture for a bigger view.
This is one of my very favorite textures in clay or food.

I add the powder to the fondant like this. I take out a small amount with a knife or spatula and place it on a paper plate then close the lid on the jar.

I then spread the powder out with my finger so I have no clumps and brush on to the fondant. If I do not do this the clumps will fall off my finger and cover everything not just the high spots on the texture.

We then drew up a small simple stencil on paper for a house. Cutting it out with the rolling cutter which is part of the rolling pin set.

The top strip is going to be the sides of our house.

We saved all the trimmings too, just in case we might need them later. We did.

We laid the front of the house on a plate and then we cut pink marshmallows in half (it was what we had ;-D) to make it the right thickness and "glued" them to the back with the chocolate icing. The marshmallows cut very nicely with a pair of kitchen shears.











We "glued" on the sides and the back of the house with chocolate frosting, Added the roof which was just more of the scale textured fondant, added a chimney, painted the pink marshmallows that showed inside the windows with chocolate frosting and set the house aside.
I am so sorry there are no pictures for this, we both got so involved with what we were doing, we forgot to take them.

Stay tuned for part 2... 

Playing with my food again-episode 4

You will need to refer back to Episode 3 where I made the fondant checkerboard.
Refrigerate the checkerboard cane for about 1 hour.

Links for the tools will connect you to my Hubby's shop if you are looking for these products.
Thank you so much for supporting myself and my family.
The other links will take you to Pila's Pantry, I do not get paid or any special compensation for doing this for Pila, other that good feeling in my heart for giving a mom and pop a plug (I do understand that mom and pop thing). They provided great service, have great prices and products, and I just like the atmosphere.

Cut off 6 slices about 1/8" thick from the checkerboard. Lay them together so they are 2 across and 3 up and down.

Press all the squares together and roll with the green roller M35001 from Makin's (remember it won't stick to the fondant, and the price? wooooooo whooooooooooo, comes with rolling cutters too) When you roll the fondant, roll up and down and then roll from the left to the right, switching each time you roll the fondant.

Or you can turn the cutting board and roll one way and then turn the board one quarter and roll again. This will spread the design evenly. This is rolled out pretty thin, about 1/16".
Trim away the excess so you have a rectangle. I just cut the edges so the whole thing had straight edges all the way around.
It was rectangle when I finished.

Now extrude some black fondant (from Pila's, my new favorite play place) with the stainless steel extruder.
I used the 4 round hole disk, it comes with the extruder.
You have to keep these cords pliable and flexible, separate them from each other and then cover with a dish towel or plastic sheeting, because putting those legs and antenna on the ants is a slow process.
I tried to put the legs on one at a time, one side at a time, and that sucked big time. So I started cutting longer lengths, about a 1", and then laying the ant body over the top of the 3 legs (really 6 individual legs).

The bodies are made from 3- 1/4" balls of black fondant (You get at Pila's, black is hard to make yourself. Just to get a good dark grey will take some time and work, also known as kneading and kneading. It does not taste like Licorice, LOL)
The abdomen ball you roll in to a little football shape. Roll in to a ball first and then roll the ball back and forth a little on the work surface with your finger.
A tiny bit of water between each segment will stick them together too! Remember that water will break down fondant, do not use too much water.

You can see my first ant at the top by the blue towel and then the next two are much better and I did not hurt my friend Jodi either.
Making the first one I wanted to scream or hurt somebody and Jodi was the closest person.
Her Hubby is pretty smart, he seems to disappear at times and when you look back you realize it was a really good time to leave, LOL!!

At 5 pm this day he got up and said very gently, "isn't it time to eat?"
At dinner and Mojitos(mummies). I finished mine and he said "she'll have another of those." Haw haw haw, gotta love a smart man.

Oh, and I used a bit of water to hold the legs to the bodies.
Just put the legs down and connect them all in the center and fan out the ends of the legs and then add tiny bit of water in the center and place the body there.

I wanted the legs to arch up and then bend down, duh, like ants, so I placed tooth picks under the legs and let them dry that way.
Doesn't the first ant look like an ant wreck?

They are multiplying just like real ants, must be all the sugar.
Dab a tiny bit of water on the top of the head. Pick up a 1/2" section of extruded coil and place on the top of the head.
Press down in the middle of the coil with the pointy tool end that comes in the modeling tool set M35002. These do not stick to fondant either and they have 6 ends for modeling on three tools and the price is way good!!

Frost that cake.
Extrude a half circle of red and then one of black.
That disk comes in another disk set M35156
(At the bottom of this page on my hubby's store are all kinds of combinations for discounts on multiple buying of disks and tools.)
Place the red one around the bottom of the cake and the black one around the top of the cake.

Cut both ends with a clay slicing blade or razor blade.

Add the tablecloth you made from the checkerboard fondant cane.

Add some of the ants to the top of the cake. Stick right in the frosting. The black seam at the top border didn't seem as prominent so we left it alone. I though, we don't want it to fall off and look like it was poisoned by the cake! Or maybe we do. LOL!! Tired, long day, too much sugar, no food, fading fast.
For the one covering the seam on the red border on the bottom, we used a little frosting to attach it to the border.

To make the basket: Roll a 1" ball of the chocolate fondant (Pila's, yes this tastes like Tootsie rolls, mmmmm mummies) in to a little log, I then shaped it to the best of my ability in to a basket bottom.

I marked the outside in a basket-like pattern with the knife-like green tool in the 3 tool set.

I added a small piece of the excess left over from the trimmings of the checkerboard table cloth, to the basket bottom.

I then rolled a little log about the length of the basket and maybe a 1/2" in diameter and flattened it with the roller or you could flatten with your fingers.

I then cut it in half. I placed one side on one half of the basket bottom over the table cloth. I placed the other half on the other side. If you rolled the log to long or flattened it too much you can trim these halves to fit.

I rolled a little log about 1/4" in diameter or the chocolate fondant and cut the handle to fit and attached it to the sides of the basket.

Look out it is the attack of the giant ants!! Maaaaahwahhhhhhhhhh!! 

I have the ant attack going on at my house lately. I don't mind ants at all as long as they stay outside.

Hubby and I have this discussion every year at this time.

Him "they are just looking for water". 

Me "I just watered, they can look outside".

They are pretty cute on a cake though.

Oh, wouldn't it be fun to place them on the plate too, in a line crawling to the cake?

Up the cake pedestal, LOL!!

On the table??

Naw! The ants were the hardest part of this whole thing and then they were not hard, they just took some patience, and someone stole mine.

I haven't been able to find it in a long time. ;-P

I still think clay is easier, but I am having fun getting to know this new (to me) clay-like medium.

Food Clay!!!