Fondant and five-year-olds

Confession: I’m breaking an internal vow. I had decided not to post pictures of any birthday cakes I make for my kids. This is supposed to be a confessions site, not a brag page. Yes?

But here I am doing it, for this reason: if you like decorating cakes, you have to try fondant!

Fondant is a very firm cake topping, able to be rolled or shaped. I used this recipe, made of nothing but marshmallows and powdered sugar. Revolting, I know. It tastes revolting as well, to everyone but the children and the young at heart. But it’s sooo easy to work with. An amateur like me can do detail way better with a Play-dough-like substance than with a frosting tube. (And pick it off again before eating.)

I started with plain white frosting…

…and decorated entirely with fondant, dyed three different colors. Most of it I rolled thinly onto waxed paper and cut with a knife into shapes. Some of it I rolled into logs or balls, particularly for the detail work.

Our only wrinkle came in dying the fondant. Gray is a more difficult shade than it initially appears. We started by adding a delicate squirt of black gel icing. Um. Did you know that black icing is not actually black? It’s very, very dark green. “Whoa,” said Regan. “Where’s that green comin from?”

“Hooold itttt,” I said eloquently. And we stood and giggled for a long time while I kneaded away at undeniably green dough. We finally got the right mixture of brown and “green” to make a passable gray.

A super fun process for me. And it made my boy very, very happy.

Try it!