Fun with Fondant

Those of us who had a normal childhood probably remember Play Doh.  Remember the McDonald's kitchen set they had which molded that awful smelling stuff into Big Macs, fries, and sundaes to complete your totally inedible meal?  As a child Play Doh always frustrated me.  I was never any good at working with Play Doh and now, at 23, I'm trying to work with the big kid baker's version of it...fondant.

My reasons for not being the biggest fan of fondant are pretty simple:

1. Has anyone really ever tasted fondant?  It's disgusting!

2. Working with fondant is like trying to work with fly paper.  It sticks to EVERYTHING!

3. The combination of it tasting terrible and being so much work makes my head spin when I see people pick the fondant off their cupcake, set it aside, and throw it away.  My inner fat kid tells me if it doesn't taste good, if you can't eat it, it ain't worth it.

-HOWEVER-

Some people are willing to pay someone to slave over these kinds of things so people "Oooh" and "Aaah" over them for three seconds before shoving out of the way to wolf down a cupcake.  In that case, I'll gladly slave over these for you!  One of my co worker's friends, a soon to be bride, wanted to do exactly that. 

She said she wanted maple leafs atop each of her 60 cupcakes using two fall colors to differentiate her two flavors of cupcakes.  It sounded simple and elegant.  Piece of cake!  I ordered myself a maple leaf cut out and punch which allowed me to either simply cut out the shape or push the plunger down into the fondant while cutting for a "spined" look.  Simple.

BUT...there's always a but.

Two days before the wedding she sent me an e-mail with this image:

I'm sorry if I sound like a Whinetta or a Moana, but these are not simple, one color leafs.  These look like something that came from my back yard!  So I thought I'd just do my best to give her what she wanted.  Immediately after making that decision, I changed my policy: No changes to orders within 1 week of the delivery date.

So I got to work on these puppies right away.  Luckily JoAnn Fabric had leaf cookie cutters in the shape of the green one shown as well as numerous colors of Wilton color dust.  However it didn't have the spines.  I made my fondant, colored both batches, and began the rolling and cutting

process. I then started spining with a toothpick.  The leafs above we done with a mold or a press so because I didn't have those kinds of tools mine didn't turn out quite as realistic.  I was pretty proud of myself though.  I made green and yellow leafs, which I colored with the dust.  The finished product was a fun mix between simple and realistic.  Once all 120 pieces were colored and spined I finished them off with a little shimmer dust.  I started this process two days before the wedding and allowed them to sit in a bakery box for those two days to set.  *NOTE: Dust a little powdered sugar on everything you will be setting fondant on, including wax paper, or you will have a nightmare of a time trying to get pieces off of the paper in one piece!*

All in all I believe the cupcakes were a success.  Given the short notice I had to nail down a technique I wasn't really sure I even had I felt like I had won this battle with fondant.  I also believe I made even more beautiful creations with my fondant nightmare than I could have ever imagines with Play Doh.  Maybe fondant just lets us big little kids have a second change at sculpting and creativity, minus that terrible smell.

Perhaps my lesson in fondant and last minute panic really wasn't a lesson in baking culinary crisis at all.  Moments like these, where a situation just kind of blows up in your face and catches you flat footed as opposed to on your toes, really make your true inner you shine.  You either take it head on or accept defeat.  Sometimes folding is the easier option of the two but in the cook book of life a hard earned victory is much, much sweeter than defeat.