Fun with Fondant (today's post brought to you by the letter "F")

Over the weekend I decided to try my hand at making fondant. I have never used it before, but I really did NOT want to use a store-bought, nasty-tasting mix. Imagine my great delight when I discovered that it can be made from marshmallows! That's right, melted marshmallows and powdered sugar can combine to create a nice, smooth sugar dough that can be rolled out and cut into shapes to top a cupcake, and it's yummy! Since I just looked at several recipes online and then just sort of winged it, my advice if you want to try this is to just google "marshmallow fondant" and see what comes up. There is a good tutorial on cakejournal.com that might be helpful, but I didn't follow that to a T. If I can give you any advice on making this stuff, it would be to rub everything the melted marshmallows will touch with crisco, including the bowl, spoon, and your hands! Also, knead your "dough" on a surface covered in powdered sugar. That will save you from having to scrape marshmallow bits off your coutertops. I let my fondant "rest" for about a day and a half before I used it, but I know you can use it right away if you like. I had some issues with the pink fondant, and I'm not sure if it's because of the added color or what, but it was more rubbery than the white and had some air-bubbling issues. I'm not quite sure how to resolve that yet, but I'll research it. If you have any questions about making it, just ask me and I'll try to let you know what worked/didn't work.

As for the cupcakes, they are chocolate with chocolate fudge frosting. It's a recipe I've had forever, and I'm not exactly sure where it came from anymore. Someday I may get around to typing it out on here for you though, because it's delish! I used the large star tip to pipe a layer of the frosting on top of the cake, and then topped it with the first piece of fondant. Then I dabbed a small amount of the frosting on the back of the second piece as a "glue" and attached it to the first piece. In hindsight, I shouldn't have been so lazy and should have made some white buttercream to do the attaching, because some of the chocolate frosting leaked out between pieces. Not so classy. Next time!

I think these cupcakes and the fondant toppers would be great for a wedding, showers, etc. There are just so many possibilities with the cut-out shapes and the colors! I really like the way they turned out, so I will probably be using this fondant quite a bit (well, for special occasions at least) in the future. I'd also like to cover a full cake with it at some point, so watch for that!
Enjoy!