Rolled Fondant and Royal Icing for Cookie Decorating

Royal Icing


Royal icing makes wonderful candy decorations for cookies (and cakes for that matter) and with a bit of time, and a large work space you can make enough icing toppings to last 6 months or so! The icing recipe I use is found here
and the instructions are quite clear, the only thing to remember is when making decorations the icing should be firm and when "flowing" items it should disappear in itself within 10 seconds. Using basic icing tips you can easily make springtime decorations like the ones Danielle and I worked on this afternoon:

After making the decorations I thinned out the icing to "flow" consistency and put them in my squeeze bottles for easy-flow technique. I will post the actual cookie decorations when they get completed...ClIfHangEr...

Rolled Fondant

Rolled fondant is another wonderful tool for cookies and cakes, and as Danielle says, "by itself"! But, don't be fooled by the Wilton* Brand...it tastes like rubbery-plastic, no joke, DON'T waste your money on that stuff. Okay, now that the lecture is out of the way, I spent an entire class in Pastry School making fondant with items such as glucose, glycerin, specialty sugars and such...

but here it the true professionals trick of the trade...

Marshmallow Fondant!!!!! Jah , jahbetcha! You heard right...no need for a trip to the specialty shops, no need to special order a bunch of items, this is the recipe you will find no wrong with! (and about 1/10 the price of my Pastry-school-fondant!

Marshmallow Fondant
13.5 oz mini marshmallows
3Tbs water
2 capfulls of almond flavoring (yes that un-professional CAPful)
almost 2lb. of confectioner's sugar

Melt the marshmallows and water in the microwave for 1minute 20seconds, stir and add flavoring. (if your whole batch will be colored do it now, to save precious kneading time later!)

Pour 1/2 a 2lb. (that is 1 lb.) bag of confectioner's sugar into a well crisco-ed stand mixing bowl. Make a well and add the marshmallow, water, flavoring mixture. Mix with the dough hook on low until combined adding sugar as needed until the ball pulls away from the sided of the bowl and is no longer sticky or crumbly. (if you made a boo-boo and added too much sugar at once just add teaspoons of water at a time to get the proper consistency)

Take fondant ball from mixing bowl, knead with well crisco-ed hands and counter until the texture is smooth and pliable. (and whatEVER you do...do NOT where a black sweater when making this icing!) This is the time you can separate into sections and knead in coloring too...see picture below.

Wrap generously in plastic wrap and well, do it again, just to make sure. I then seal in a zip lock, just to make sure, AGAIN. This will store at room temperature for 3-6months. Roll out and cut into shapes as needed, or form flowers and other decorations with.

Rolled Fondant log, and colored rolled fondant logs after kneading in gel colors. Oh, please, PUULeeeze put me on that cookie already!

Tutorial: Cheater Petit Fours

Okay, so have you seen this! This super cheater petit four recipe?! Really it is all over the web. here, and here and now I am adding a tutorial as well.

Yes, you start with these:

Your children will squeal!

Trim them into squares, as the family waits for the bits of snacks.

Get your rolled fondant out (recipe here) Okay, so take my word on this...don't use the store bought fondant, make your own. You will love fondant if you make your own, if you use the store bought fondant you will not be happy!

The biggest part of this tip, don't roll the pieces out like I did. By the time you get to the last square it will be to dry to form around your bitty cake piece.

If you wrap your cake and it crack, don't cry. the warmth of your fingers will make it flexible and you will be able to have a smooth edge.

See, if you have a round of rolled fondant, you can form it over the cake much easier.

The bottoms don't have to be perfect...right?!

Color some fondant green for leaves, and pink and yellow for flowers

To get the tiny flowers to adhere to your fondant topped cakes, just use a little drop of water. Place in mini cupcake liners for presentation.

Are you surprised?! Total cheater, huh?! But big bang presentation!

Rolled Fondant Sugar Cookies... REViISiTed

Table Favor Cookies for the Confirmation Students this week.

All it takes is a few ingredients...

Cheap ingredients!

To create rolled fondant!

This seems to be my "springtime" tradition... making these cookies, if you recall here...

Again, take my advice, and don't try to save time by buying the Wilton Brand in the store... you will NOT ever eat fondant again if you try pre-made!

What a wonderful time we had making our cookies and presenting them in a bouquets! The Homeschooling Mom's Night Out was such a blast...these ladies are some of the most creative women I have ever met! One friend left before I had snapped pictures, so I am sorry that there aren't any of hers there, but this was a true fun night.

The "Artist" of the group painted most of her cookies with luster dust...what a wonderful affect on fondant! Isn't her cross incredible!

Once packaged the cookies were on their way home to their waiting families! YUMM-O

We went over rolled fondant, royal icing, color flow, buttercream, and the basics of baking cookies on sticks and assembly of the bouquets...what a fun class. Way to go girls!

Pink-Black-Green Challenge

The Pink Stamper had a challenge this week: Use the cricut and the colors pink, green and black for your project. I used the Home Decor cartridge for the frames, the "hope" and the backgrounds. Scripture is Zapfina font, the sugar cookies are home baked, as well as the fondant. The black swirls and dots are hand painted. The fondant is lighter in the picture than in person. I used a tin pail purchased at the dollar spot in Target. I am hosting a Chaplain's Wife's Coffee this week and we are creating these to take home.

Spring Fever, Student Driver and well, what else?! Cupcakes!

I had to add these cookies too! Regular Sugar with Royal Icing and Fondant accents, Spring has sprung!
I just cannot believe that my sweet little girl has my life in the palm of her hands! Gosh how time flies! She is doing a wonderful job, and as usual is an exceptional student...we won't even mention the go-cart incident and how her breaks just didn't work! Really...she means it, really!

Okay, who can remember this awesome icing from your childhood, hmmm, ME! I CAN, I CAN! So I just had to create a chocolate cupcake, filled with hazelnut chocolate cream, and topped with the luscious high childhood favorite, and then, well, it just had to be topped with a coating of ganache to add to the indulgence. Do you think these will make it in Hallowed Grounds? This is what recipe testing is about, I wish you could taste through the computer screen!

The family also tested two separate recipes for the Vanilla Bean Cupcake and Vanilla Bean Buttercream and we were testing the cupcake liners as well. The top left is the one dd and I like. The liner to the top right is traditional and the center bottom is traditional baked outside of the cupcake tin...which one do you prefer? The sugar-rimmed cupcake below is the winning recipe though...the crumb was perfect, the other recipe "shrunk" after baking....cheer us on!


The bakeshop is still under planning stages, we are terrified and excited at the same time...so please keep us in your prayers...God is so wonderfully consistent, I know that HE will hold me dearly in all situations.

Molding Sugar for Easter

This is a simple and inexpensive traditional Easter project that you can do in an afternoon. The WOW effect is certainly big with this project! So, with pictures and instructions, I hope you will give it a try with your family! God Bless this Holy Week for your families!

Molded Sugar Ingredients:

2 cups sugar
1 Tbs. water
1 Tbs. meringue powder (optional, hardens end product better, but not required)

Mix the above ingredients and cover while not using.

Pat into a mold (a plastic egg mold would be fine, or any chocolate molds), pressing firmly with your hand. Level the back with an offset spatula and invert onto a sheet tray.

Bake for 20 minutes in a 200 degree oven.

Remove from heat, the outer shell of the sugar will be hard. Using a spoon scrape out the inside of the egg to hollow it out, this sugar will still be soft. (Reuse this for other sugar molding projects by re-wetting) Be careful, the egg can crack! Make extra for breakage and crumble up the broken pieces for re-use.

You may paint some of your dried pieces using food color thinned in clear almond or vanilla flavoring.















I printed out butterflies on edible rice paper with my cake printer, if you do not have a cake printer you may still make these butterflies with rice paper and the coloring as you did with painting your dried pieces of sugar. I think this was demonstrated on Martha's show this week.

To finish the egg, attach with royal icing (see blog about cookies for recipe) and nestle the egg into some Fondant for stability. Decorate with icing flowers and Enjoy!