My daughter’s Birthday cake.

For the cake I made a two tiered cake of my Chocolate cake recipe that is in many other posts and I covered it -or dirty iced it as they say with any frosting, I have posted a few flavors  in other posts. Then the fondant gets draped over the frosted cake.

Marshmallow Fondant Icing recipe

16 oz bag of Jet-Puffed mini marshmallows
A 2lb bag of C & H powdered sugar
2-5 tbsp water
1/2 cup  or more of white Crisco…or Spectrum ( I prefer) shortening
1 pair of surgical gloves

Melt your entire bag of marshmallows  plus 2 Tbsp water in a large glass bowl every 30 seconds stirring in between until it is completely melted. This usually takes 2 mins or so.  Clean your counter well. Dry it then  cover it with Crisco  put your gloves on and cover your gloves with Crisco well too. Add your food coloring to your bowl of melted marshmallow. Stir it in well then add 3/4 of the bag of powdered sugar. mix it in well too. Then knead the dough-like fondant on the counter adding slowly the rest of the powdered sugar. If it gets too sticky or tears add a little water and continue. if it starts sticking to your hands or counter add a little more Crisco to your hands or your counter. Keep kneading until smooth and well mixed. Consider this your workout for the day.  Then you can store it at this stage wrapped tightly in saran wrap in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. I prefer to get it over with because you will have to regrease your counter… fyi. Roll it out to your desired size and enlist the help of another person to help you drape it over your already dirty iced cake Make sure you had dirty iced your cake with a lot of icing to make sure the fondant will look smoothest. Once draped trim the bottom edges and smooth it out evenly. Add any additional icing decorations … I used decorator icing for mine in a Wilton disposable bag with a few different tips. And the Mermaid centerpiece was purchased online and is made entirely of plastic….I know I totally cheated at the last minute. What can I say … I was tired. lol

Chocolate Cake Recipe

3 cups All-purpose flour
2 Tsp Baking Soda
1/2 cup Hersey’s Unsweetened Pure Cocoa
2 cups white granulated sugar
1 Tsp salt
2 cups water
1 Tsp Distilled White Vinegar
2/3 cup Canola oil
1 Tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

Combine all dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and blend well. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add all wet ingredients and blend well. grease the sides of your cake pans using butter substitue and place baker’s liners or wax paper cut to size in the bottom of all pans. I used a 13 inch round and an 9 inch round for this particular cake. It took me tripling this recipe to make enough batter. Twice for the large 13 inch round and once for the 9 inch round. Once your pans are lined and greased pour your batter into each pan. Place the larger pan on the bottom rack and the smaller one on the top rack. Bake carefully about 40-50 minutes… check on them periodically- but carefully. Toothpick test the center to see if it is done… if the toothpick comes out clean then it is ready. Set them on top of the stove for 5 mins to begin the cool down then move them to a cooling rack or onto a cooler counter top- with pads underneath to protect your surfaces. Let them completely cool before moving on…. at least 1 hour.

Vanilla (Not-So Butter) Buttercream Frosting

1 cup Earth Balance dairy-free, soy free butter substitute
6 sups of powdered sugar
2 Tbsp Pure Vanilla Extract
pinch of salt
0-2 Tbsp Rice milk- depending on how stiff you prefer

Beat the butter substitute and powdered sugar with an electric mixer on low for about two minutes. Add the vanilla, water and salt and mix again on low for about two minutes. Add any additional rice milk for the level of consistency desired. For thicker, dryer frosting leave as is… for runnier icing add a little rice milk 1 Tbsp at a time. If you are doing decorative icing leave it thicker, for simple cake frosting a little runny is ok, not too runny though. You don’t want this to resemble a glaze.

For this cake I made the icing and set it aside. I took out my baker’s cake board and my pretty baker’s foil and covered it. Then I took a butter knife and ran it around the sides of each round cake loosening it from the pan. Then I took the larger cake first and flipped it over onto my hands slowly and placed it upside down in the center of the cake board. Then I peeled off the wax paper/baker’s liner. Then I took my frosting and dirty iced the bottom layer completely. Next I took the smaller cake and did the same thing, slowly flipped it over upside down onto my hands carefully placing it in the center of the larger cake and dirty iced the top cake. Then I set it aside.

Homemade Marshmallow Fondant

1 10.5oz bag of Jiffy-puff mini marshmallows or 16oz- even better
2 Tbsp water
Food dye or gel food coloring… I prefer Wilton, but whatever
1 small bag 16oz of Confectioners powdered sugar
1/2 cup Spectrum Shortening

Take a large glass mixing bowl pour all of your marshmallows into it Add your 2 Tbsp of water place in the microwave for 1 minute 30 seconds- 2 minutes. Pull out immediately. Stir until completely melted, add your food coloring of choice… I choose green by Wilton for this cake in particular. Then stir completely and as quickly as you can. Add in 2/3 of your bag of powdered sugar and continue mixing as quickly as possible. Wipe shortening all over your hands and your counter top. then dust that with some of the extra powdered sugar to make a good kneading surface. Next begin to knead this lump of fondant just like dough until all the powdered sugar is blended. If it gets too dry add a tiny bit of extra water… by the Tbsp. If it gets too runny add a little powdered sugar.  Knead until well blended then grab your rolling pin… wipe a small amount of shortening on it and dust it with a tiny bit of powdered sugar then begin to roll out the fondant from a disk to a large circle. If you have a nonstick bakers mat measuring how wide to roll to will be much easier. Otherwise take the measurements of your larger pan and the extra inches you will need vertically to come up with the width needed. For this particular two tiered cake was around 16-17 inches. Have someone else help you lift it carefully and quickly and drape it over your cake. You can use a rolling pin to drape part of the fondant over to help you carry it to the cake, but be careful tearing of the fondant can occur so be careful. Once on the pre-iced cake, use your palms to smooth the cake and form fit it to your tiers. Then take a sharp knife and cut the excess fondant off at the bottom wrapping the excess under the edge of the cake if you prefer. You can save all your extra fondant to roll back into balls and use to make figurines or other decorative pieces for the finished cake.