First Time Making Mmf Decorations And Need Help.
Decorating By Tiffinie Updated 6 Jun 2010 , 1:02am by Tiffinie
Hello all. I will be making my daughters 1st birthday cake in 2 weeks and am a little nervous. I have never made a big cake like this nor have I ever used fondant of any kind. Anyhow, I plan on making the bottom tier zebra print with buttercream and MMF (homemade for the first time) for the stripes. How long in advance can I make the MMF and can I just paint the stripes black (I have the wilton black gel) or should I color the whole batch of MMF black? Also, if I cut out the zebra pattern in advance, will it be okay in the fridge either painted or not for a few days? Last question..how do I attach the zebra stripes to the cake? Phewww...sorry about all the questions but I am excited yet nervous. Thanks so much for anyones help! 
How exciting!!! My little one will be 2 in about 2 weeks! He was born on the 21st. I could not WAIT for his first birthday! I started planning it the day he was born.
Now, are you talking about putting MMF on top of buttercream? If so, Id put it on shortly after you frost it, before the icing crusts. If it's crusted already, I suppose a really thin smear on icing on the back of the stripe would get it to stick just fine.
Personally, I prefer fondant on fondant. If you do it that way, then you use just a TINY bit of water to attach the pieces. It makes it sticky. Too much water, and you risk it sliding off the cake, or worse, drips down the side. Uck.
When I did my last zebra cake, I just randomly cut weird triangles and stripes. There was no thinking involved, really. I just went at it. I used a pizza cutter to cut the pieces.
You can make MMF in advance. I never do it any more than a week, and I store it in the fridge wrapped in saran wrap and then in a plastic bag with a good zipper. Get all the air out you can. Dont store it next to garlic or onions. 
I have frozen MMF before and thawed it for later use. I have had great success with this. I usually dont use frozen fondant for covering cakes (just in case) but it works just fine for details and other small uses. If its any older, I find that the quality goes down a bit. It gets a little funky. Some people say you can have it in the fridge for 2 weeks. That's cool if its for yourself I guess, but I never do that for a customer.
As for coloring it, I hate black fondant. Hate hate it. I would say get it as dark as you can. Too much dye in MMF tends to make it act weird. It starts to break up. I dont know if it's the glycerin in it or what. I try to avoid dying MMF dark black if I can. When I did my zebra cake, I dyed it a really dark grey, then went over it later and hand painted black (gel color + vodka or vanilla) over the stripes.
I dont know about making the stripes in advance. I suppose you could if you didnt have enough time in one day to do it all at once, but I like to do it as Im putting it on the cake so I can see what size to cut next, custom cut the next piece to fit properly. If you have them all cut out already, you my find that the pieces are laying exactly as you would like them to. I say cut them as you are going along so you can make it fit nicer. If you dont fret over it too much, it will go faster than you think.
If you are making MMF for the first time, I highly suggest practice in advance, or at least make it several days ahead of time so that if it doesnt turn out right, you have a chance to re-do it. MMF is tempermental. It took me many, many tries to get it right. I have it down to a science now. I have a tutorial I can send you that explains how I make mine and also common problems and troubleshooting. If you would like it, PM me.
Good luck on this! It's so super exciting! I love first birthdays! It's my absolute favorite cake subject, next to baby showers. Being a mom of a soon to be 2 year old, and one on the way Ive got a bit of baby fever lately.
Hello all. I will be making my daughters 1st birthday cake in 2 weeks and am a little nervous. I have never made a big cake like this nor have I ever used fondant of any kind. Anyhow, I plan on making the bottom tier zebra print with buttercream and MMF (homemade for the first time) for the stripes. How long in advance can I make the MMF and can I just paint the stripes black (I have the wilton black gel) or should I color the whole batch of MMF black? Also, if I cut out the zebra pattern in advance, will it be okay in the fridge either painted or not for a few days? Last question..how do I attach the zebra stripes to the cake? Phewww...sorry about all the questions but I am excited yet nervous. Thanks so much for anyones help!
My girlfriend and I did graduation cookies with mmf today for her son's grad. party in 2 weeks. I can tell you that 6 oz. melted chocolate mixed in with the microwaved marshmallows worked well. You will need to add some black but you won't need as much. We did the first batch with baking cocoa and had some texture issues. We did take fondant from both batches and it was wonderful (cocoa batch and melted choc. batch mixed together) with a wonderful texture and no "cracking" issues!
You can attach the fondant pieces to the cake with water dabbed on the back (I like to use thinned down corn syrup for cookies).
Make sure that you keep your fondant covered or it will dry out. You can keep it in a ziploc bag or saran wrap. You can cut out fondant ahead of time, just make sure you keep it covered or it will dry out and it will just break because it will be brittle.
Incidentally, I really like Michele Foster's fondant and use that whenever I can. It rolls out so easily and flavors well. I've made chocolate, lemondade flavor, almond, etc. and it was great! Well worth the work it takes to make it.
Also, when you make fondant, add your colors as soon as you melt your marshmallows before you add the sugar, it's so much easier that way!
Good luck and have fun! 
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