Fun with Fondant

I have always wanted to try my hand at making fondant frosting. I stumbled across a pretty great online tutorial, so I thought that I'd finally give it a shot as my sister's birthday was fast approaching.

Kelsey loves red velvet cake, but I'm not a huge fan of the massive amounts of food coloring needed. I would've loved to use beets for the coloring, but being the picky eater she is, I know that she wouldn't have gone for it. Has anyone tried this? I wonder how cakes colored with beets taste? I tried a recipe from my new bargain book ($1 from Half Price Books!), Little Cakes: Classic Recipes for Any Occasion. It was so delicious and can't wait to try all of the recipes!

My cakes came out beautiful and delicious. By the way, I learned a rather neat trick to get a cake to come out of the pan without sticking to the bottom: After removing from the oven, set the pan on a damp towel while the cake cools. Once it's time to remove the cake from the pan --- Voila!! No huge chunks stuck to the bottom!

I made my fondant in advance (it keeps in the fridge for a few weeks), which really helped out on time because the fondant took for-ev-er to roll out! You definitely need some muscles for that project!

I'm super proud of how smooth I got it to lay on the cake, but not so happy about the color. It's a little too reminiscent of the Nickelodeon green slime.

I had fondant left over and time to spare, so I decided to throw a little embellishment on the cake. It definitely made it look even more ugly than before! :) Is it just me, or does it seem like Kelsey is laughing at how horrendous it looks?

All in all, it was a fun project with yummy results. Since I made the fondant out of marshmallow, it came out more sweet than yucky like store-bought fondant. I think if I fine-tune my decorating skills, that it could actually make for a pretty nice looking cake since I like the smoothness of fondant.

If you want to see something even more ugly, stay tuned for my failed attempt at a cake mix cookie. I promise that you won't want to make these yourself!

Freezer Paper Fabric Stencils

I can finally cross another craft project off of my summer to-do list! I've been wanting to make some cute onesies for Azra for some time now. When I ran across this freezer paper stencil tutorial, I knew that I had to try it. Sure enough, it was a super simple project with super cute results!

To begin, I drew my design on the paper side of a piece of freezer paper. Make sure to recognize which pieces you actually want to cut out to paint the inside, or you'll be drawing/cutting twice as I did. Place the stencils wax side down on your fabric. To give the fabric some added stiffness, I placed a sheet of paper on the underside of the fabric as well. With your iron set on medium, iron over the freezer paper for a few minutes. It should begin sticking immediately.

Once it has set, you can begin painting. I used some acrylic paint that I had lying around, but I'm sure that fabric paint would work best. I took care to paint from the outside in, so as to not let the paint bleed under the paper.

I let the paint set for just a few minutes, then I carefully peeled off the paper to view my results!

A perfect little panda for the babe. I love the outcome and can't wait to start making tons of other designs!