Playing with my food again-episode 3

I am continuing this saga with the fondant cane. I just had to try it.
You can see episode 2 of playing with my food here
You can see how the clay checkerboard is done here

I extruded the white fondant first.
The red fondant that Pila makes at her pantry is super saturated red and so much easier to buy than to make.
And since it was so inexpensive we bought the hardest colors to make.
Making them ourselves from the white would have taken the whole weekend, we had food we had to play with.

The fondant checkerboard cane

Extrude the white with the square disk.

Comes out like this. One thing I learned is, fondant is heavy and pliable, and the fondant you have extruded will pull from the disk and thin the fondant coming out of the extruder.

So move the extrduder over a table or cutting board as you extrude.
Look at that red, just a yummy, intense red. Well done Pila!!

Now using the same square disk, extrude the red.
If you load up the barrel of the extruder you will get close to the same amount.
Another thing I learned, is to cut both extruded pieces in half, they will be much easier to work with.

Another thing I learned, is to brush on a very tiny bit of water to get the two square logs to adhere to each other.




I said, very tiny bit of water. If you read episode 2, you will remember I learned that water breaks down fondant.

Now I had to put a very tiny amount of water on the one half to get it to stick to the other here.
I put these together so they go red, white, red, white.
This is called a pattern ;-D too much Sesame Street, sorry!!

After I put them together, I add a tiny bit of water. Did I mention it was tiny?
Water will break down fondant.

I cut the whole length in half. No, No, No do not bring out that ruler, go ahead live dangerously, you can do it!
Whatever is left over can be mixed in to a nice pink fondant, right?
Or maybe more of a salmon.

Turn one of the halves over (you can also rotate horizontally 80 degrees) so the pattern is the opposite of the other and place one half on top of the other.

Does it look like this?

If it does...





you did good.

Now cut the stacked ones in half.

Rotate or turn one half over again and stack. you may have to add a very tiny bit of water to one half.








Once the two halves are stacked together press very gently together and then rotate one-quarter turn and press that side together gently. Keep turning and rotating one-quarter turn until it is compacted together.

This was hard to cut with the blade I had. I forgot to bring a clay slicing blade.

Stay tuned for the episode where I do something with this. LOL!! I didn't say the next episode either.
Another thing I learned is "You can cane fondant", what a blast. I learned a lot, didn't I?
What is next?
Cookie dough??? LOL!!

Playing with my food again-episode 2

Last weekend, I escaped and went to stay with a friend for the whole weekend.
I went to my good friend Jodi's house and we played with our food again.
You can see where Jodi and I have played with food before, here.
http://mariesegal.blogspot.com/2009/04/playing-with-my-food.html
A few people that know me, know that I have envisioned myself for years as a cake decorator. Must have been in another life time.
I watch the pastry shows and all that.
LOL!! Clay is so much easier, I have a whole new respect and awe of cake decorators.

I also have all these great tools that I can use in cake decorating and pastries, I just know I can. Extruders, texture sheets, molds, rolling cutters, cutters, and various others I can not think of now! LOL!
So why not give it a try right?
So good to have someone with the tools we might need also and who I have so much fun with when we are together, Jodi.
We started off Friday night, I got there later than I planned and Jodi had already baked various cakes, cupcakes and bought some fondant. We ate some dinner and discussed our attack plan.
We gathered tools.
I brought the ones I wanted to try.

Here are some of them, all Makin's tools.
I was so happy I brought these green tools. They do not stick to the fondant, and everything else does!!

Jodi had the food colors

and sparkling sugar and food grade sparkling powders.









Similar to pearl-ex and glitter ;-D

We wanted to start right away, but both of us had had a long week and if anything, we might be getting smarter as we get older, har har har!!
The next day we had to go pick up the chocolate fondant at Pila's Pantry in Norco (there is also one in Temecula).
Pila's Pantry
http://www.pilaspantry.com/
1670 Hamner Ave. #6
Norco, Ca 92860
951- 371-3957

The fondant prices were outstanding too. And it tasted good.
Lauren helped us, gave us a few secrets, and was just a very sweet girl and a veritable wealth of information.
What a great place, I can see myself getting lost in here for a couple many hours ;-O Oops I did.

OMG! And the chocolate fondant tastes like tootsie rolls. As Madi would say "mummies".

After we got back from there, we started right in making things.
We washed and dried all of the tools. Water, I found out from Jodi, breaks down fondant. They had to be completely dry.
We took a sheet cake and cut out little 3" diameter individual cakes, so they would be bigger than a cupcake and more surface area to work on.

Crumb frosted first and then a layer of tub frosting from the grocery store. This was totally about the tools and embellishments and less about making the best tasting cake in the world.
Neither Jodi or I consider ourselves pastry chefs, and as far as working with fondant and making goodies for the top I am a rank beginner and she a has a lot more experience  than I, but we are both beginners.
But we both have tons of enthusiasm and are willing to try things.

We thought we would try molding the flowers and leaves first.

Pinch off a piece of fondant, less than you think you might need, roll into a ball and place in to the flower you want.
Fill the mold.
The fondant does not stick to these molds, your hands yes, but not the molds.

Having a perfectly smooth cutting board is key here and if you do not have one you can use a marble tile from the hardware store.
Turn the mold over and press it down on the cutting board.

Pull the mold back quickly(think waxing, or pulling the tablecloth off the table full of glasses, quick and deliberate) and the fondant should come out of the mold and stick to the cutting board. You want it to stick to the cutting board.

Clean up the flower around the edges with one of the green tools. They have many different tips, 3 tools, so find the one you like. I prefer this knife like one and would push the excess from the edges to the flower, if the edges weren't clean.
Use one of the those small metal cake spatulas to get it off the cutting board or this spatula P47 will work too.

You can use a single edge razor blade to cut away the excess.
Cut into the edge and pull back the razor blade to remove the excess.
The leaves are pretty easy to do this with. The flowers have more curves so you have to take little "bites" with the blade.
The fondant does stick to the blade, a lot!
I had to clean the blade with water many times.

Jodi started painting this flower with thinned down food coloring. Almost water color looking.
We used Gel food coloring. You can get those at Pila's too.

Now with this one she used these powders (looks exactly like Pearlex) and mixed them with a little vodka (Seagram's 7, we didn't have any vodka, LOL) The alcohol evaporates and the powder stays. These look gorgeous on the fondant.

Cover the whole flower. You can see the food coloring one in the background.
These we let dry for a while, this will probably depend on your weather and humidity.

When it was dry, I brushed with a little gold powder with my finger just to accent the lines. I applied it the same way I do on the beads and hearts.
Cute eh?
We made a bunch of leaves and different size roses this way!

I mixed up some light pink fondant and extruded  the edges.

We took one of the little frosted cakes and started adding the edges.

I used these two dies and the stainless steel extruder, OMG, this extruder is made for precious metal clay and it is so much nicer than my all time favorite extruder.
The clearance in the barrel is very tight, so there is very little clay or fondant ;-D left in the barrel. The ends screw together very smoothly too and it is very easy to clean because of the short barrel. Nice, very nice tool.

I used the one on the left for the top edge of the cake.
What a great way to make edging, I felt like I was a pastry chef. LOL!!! It looked very good.
Click on the pic for a bigger view.

We covered the seams with flowers and leaves. We used a little frosting to attach those ones on the bottom.
And placed the rest of the flowers on the cake directly to the frosting.
All in all, we thought we did a great job and were ready to tackle some more at this point.

I have never had so much fun playing with my food, and at my age... geesh!!
I tell you, I think we did a great job with the tools made for clay. Guess what?? these are now cake tools for me, too.
YES!! Chef.