Hi. I'm fairly new at making themed cakes. However, I'm about to embark on the ambitious task of making my son a 3-d farm cake for his 2nd b-day. i pretty much have figured out how i'm going to make the barn & like that; though, if anyone has any ideas about how to the silo i'm all ears.

my question is regarding making fondant animals. i saw a marshmallow fondant recipe (here on cakecentral) that looks simple enough. so...

question 1: is this a suitable recipe for making animals?

question 2: the recipe discusses how to tint BUT it assumes that you are making one color for the whole batch in that it has you tinting before adding your dry ingredient. what would be anyone's recommendation for tinting smaller "batches" for the animals

question 3: any tips on how to get the best colors? On the fondant do i just use food color or something else?

question 4: how far in advance can i make these animals? if i can do them quite a bit in advance how do i store them?

i appreciate all the help i can get. thanks in advance & happy baking!

Hi,

I mix 50/50 fondant (wilton (only for figures) mixed with tylose or gumpaste.

You can made way ahead. I have made figures, letters, numbers. etc two weeks or more ahead. They need to air dry, then you can put in a box but do not close the lid all the way you just want to keep the dust off.

I have never used marshmallow fondant. I just get the 50% coupon from Michaels and just that on wilton fondant for figures. I leave my good fondant for cakes.

Color - I love americolor. You can use wilton, mix a day ahead to let the colors set to make sure that is the color you want so if need be you can adjust the color to lighter or darker. Some dark colors are best to let sit for awhile they deepen.

I hope this helps. I am sure other will post too. Good luck and post cake when done.

question 1: yes. as long as you arent needing them to dry hard, or be too detailed, fondant is fine for modelling. (in my opinion, its fine for what sounds like a fairly simple project anyway - you could add a bit of gumpaste (50/50) to give it more strength)

question 2: make it white, then just knead in the colours as needed. takes a bit more time but is pretty easy. darker colours can take a lot of dye tho!

question 3: you need to use food dye, and mix it into the fondant. you can paint over, but its tricky to get a perfect finish. an airbrush is ideal though. americolour (i think) tends to work better (less dye = better colour) than wilton.

question 4: as far in advance as you want to. just keep them covered and out of the light. if you wrap them and put them in an airtight box, they will stay soft. if you let the air at them, they will start to dry. you will want them soft if you are going to be moulding to the shape of the cake - or dry on the cake tin.
xx

I believe you can add some gumpaste to the fondant to make the animals. Break off the amount of fondant you think you need for each color and color it by dipping a toothpick in the color, and adding to the fondant and kneading in like bread dough. Americolor icing color is a good brand of color. if not, use the Wilton icing colors. the animals can be make pretty far in advance and stored uncovered (they will dry/harden some depending on how long they are out. Check out the tutorials on You tube...a person called Aine2 has lots of them.

I made some animals for my dd birthday and really enjoyed them. I really just searched the galleries here and duplicated the animals as best I could.

1. Yes, I used MMF for my animals. I made it a bit thinker, so it would hold its shape. Add powdered sugar, cornstarch or gumpaste
or tylose

2. You will have to make a batch and leave it white, then take pieces of it after it is all made to tint. Do not use food coloring, you need to get gel color, like for cake decorating. Just knead it in. Some colors are hard to get like red or black, but since you are using a small quanity of fondant you should be fine.

3. same as 2.

4. As far as you want. They will harden left out to air, so if you want your ds to eat them, I'd say no more than 4 or 5 days.

hth

Welcome to this awesome site...

1. Yes you can use this recipe but you to mix with gum tex to make it pliable

http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=3E30E7E3-475A-BAC0-50309B6102CDBA51&fid=D775DAE4-1E0B-C910-EAA9C298202C76ED

2.-3 You can make the whole batch white then you tint the color you want. For example. if you need just a pice of pink you get just a pice of white and color with pink...about the color the best one is americolor, you can use any brand but it has to be paste
http://www.americolor.org/


http://www.wilton.com/decorating/fondant/fondant-color-blending-chart.cfm

http://www.wilton.com/decorating/fondant/coloring-fondant.cfm

4. Yes you can make them in advance...all depents on your skills if you can make them really fast, but I did some figurines and I did a month in advance...

http://cake-decorating.lovetoknow.com/Gum_Paste_Recipe

this webpage will help you with everything..

good luck

Welcome

thanks everyone. i appreciate all the tips.