Modeling fondant

Talking about how fast time goes. We just finished the first lesson of the fifth phase of this course and we are back at cake decorating. It's time to get creative again!

We were asked to bring a picture of whatever we wanted to make with us so we could start practicing modeling fondant. For those who didn't bring one there was one available in class. As I didn't had a printer available I used the picture they had in class.

We all got our own bucket of fondant for this phase and we started with a short explanation of what to expect in the next 5 lessons. Then we could go all out on the picture. We could use whatever they had available. 

This is the first time I worked with some of the materials, like fondant crimpers, several molds and tylo powder.

Tylo powder is a synthetic (man made) equivalent of gum tragacanth. We used it to make modeling paste by kneading 4 or 5 grams of tylo powder to 250 grams of fondant. This modeling paste will be our basic. From this we can add other ingredients depending on the purpose of the fondant.

It's also possible to make our own fondant by adding some tylo powder to some royal icing. This is very helpful to know because if you are in a hurry you can make it yourself instead of running to the store and buy some.

Tylo powder also used to make edible glue by adding it to some water and let it slowly dissolve.

I started with adding some blue color to the fondant. When the fondant had the color I wanted I rolled it out. The picture I got in class was used as a mold. I cut out most of the elements and placed them on the fondant. I cut out the hart shapped back ground and used a mold to put a pattern on. Then I made the frame and used a crimper to shape it a bit.

I decided to keep the guys jacket white and give the girl a fancy old pink colored dress. To make it a bit fancier I put on some gold accents.

Then I made the arms and heads. I'm not a fan of blond so both got brown hair. This color wasn't easy to make and it took me several attempts to get the girl's color right.

I just love to add extra details to make it stand out so the girl's dress didn't had a sleeve but a very thin string and she got some lipstick on.

Then because it is very difficult to shape a hand I decided to hide it in a bunch of yellow roses. 

This was a very slow class, but it was nice because we could go all out with modeling the fondant. It reminded me of when I was young and we used play dough to make stuff. I just wish I played with it more. Imagine what I could be making now!