I am wondering if there is anyone in the Minneapolis area that would be willing to give me a lesson on fondant...especially figures. The two that I have made cracked and got wrinkly.
I was using Satin Ice.
Any Takers
or....if you know where I can take a class on this (not Wilton) let me know.
Thanks.
[moderator edited to remove email address]
Hi.. Im in TX. and did a search in the Minneapolis area.. Are you familiar with Spring Lake Park???
This is what I found in my search
..
Lynn's Cake & Candy Supplies
(763) 784-2186
8195 University Ave NE
Spring Lake Park, MN 55432
Hours:
Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday 10:00am-8:00pm, Friday 10:00am-6:00pm, Saturday 10:00am-3:00pm
Specialties:
Cake Decorating, Cake Decorating Classes, Cake Supplies, Candy Classes, Candy Supplies, Private Lessons
I just want to get better at fondant accents. I have done two figures.. both began to crack and get wrinkly as I was adding stuff to them..i..e when I wanted to add a design to the shirt of a figure it got...again..wrinkly and cracked. Is there a book I can get on this?
I would like to know the mechanics of putting a figure together. Do you create a "body" and then add the clothes or do you just mold pieces of fondant to look as though they are body and clothes. Also getting pieces to fit together..how do I make the shirt look like it hangs over the pants rather than two blobs just stuck together. am I making any sense? The more I worked with the figures to get them do to what I wanted -- the worse they looked. Like dry semi cracked playdoh.
I don't have anything coming up --just though I could use this time to understand the process and practice a bit. Luckly, one of two was for my own son's cake and the other for a friend who was amazed by my feeble attempt.
I live 30 minutes west of Mpls.
THANKS!!! 
How did you find this?
My husband has been to this store to pick something up for me..before I found my regular "cake store" as I call it.
I will give them a call. I know Micheal's does the Wilton classes but they use Wilton fondant (YUCKO) and not sure that they offer figures.
Lets say I am doing a bear--Well I mold the body and coloring fondant really dark will make it very soft. It has been humid here so that does not help. Coloring a day or two ahead will help with this. I mold the body of the bear and then I add the head ,arms and legs. The clothes I cut in pieces like a sweater will be four parts. Two arms, front and back of sweater. Yes I use toothpick to hold the arms in. not sure why it would crack-Is it too heavy and then cracking---I know it is hard to explain but a photo might help in this situation so we can see what happened.
Here is a pic of a bear I did--My first so don't laugh!
just did a search on cake supplies in or near Minneapolis and found it.. it came to mind, cause the cake shops around me or cake shop rather, has cake classes.. just thought maybe some around you would offer the same.. Good luck!
There is slim picknings in the greater Twin Cities. We have Sweet Celebrations and Lynn's for cake supply. There are some good classes but depends on who teaches them. Joe at the Sweet celebrations store in Burnsville does great work. They also are having a Minneapolis day of sharing soon and the Ices chapter meeting.
Okay . lets see if I can get the picture attached.
This was JoJo the clown. I actually did the body in two separate pieces and then let dry cuz of the cracking. Then..when I tried to assemble...you guessed it..they didn't fit together. The shirt sort of teetered on top of the pants. Next time I will make the pants have a part that goes up higher and the shirt have a "crater" for lack of a better word so it will fit like a glove...(HOPEFULLY)
Anyway here is the picture of the pants...at this point they were just wrinkly - when I tried to smooth it would get more cracky looking - dry looking.
What is "day of sharing"?
I go to the Mtka Sweet Celebrations but when I ask questions about fondant they don't seem to have many answers.
Can anyone attend "day of sharing"?
Also - what is Ices?
I am fairly new to decorating..joined about a year ago but haven't really done a lot of cakes until recently. I need to get my photos posted...hopefully soon. They aren't as good as most on this site but everyone has said I did a great job. Not planning on going into business or anything (I am already stressed with face painting and clowning) but just want to do the best I can. Learn as I go.
with the JoJo - she was supposed to be sitting with her legs hanging off of the side of the cake. When ever I tried to gently bend then they would appear to be cracking. The picture is my first attempt. On second attempt..after being told to use crisco instead of pdr sugar for stickyness - I made top and pants separate since I figured I only wanted to have to redo one rather than both again. I liked the way both turned out though I decided to leave legs straight cuz I still encountered cracking when trying to bend legs. Let pieces dry. Ran out of time when I was frosting and decorating and ended up putting JoJo in a cloud of frosting in order to keep the shirt on top of pants. Since both were mostly dry the top teetered on pants rather than looking like one piece. I'll put pic in next post..
Days of sharing are when people will bring cakes in to view and some nmini classes are held.
Ices
Here is a link http://www.ices.org/welcome.htm
From the picture it almost looks like elephant skin. Are you using corn starch or powdered sugar? These tend to dry out the fondant. I use crisco or pan grease lightly applied to my work surface hands and rolling pin.
Alos uneven thinkness can cause some parts to dy faster than others. Hope this helps.
here is the pic.
hence - I need help with the mechanics making the two pieces appear as one and making each piece so that it doesn't get wrinkly and cracked.
I tried smoothing out with finger with a dab of crisco on it but it didn't help so I gave up.
My friends husband bumped the cake box and JoJo top half fell off the pants. We just plopped it back up but the hands don't quite match the the sleeves. They were still impressed though.
Yes usually anyone can attend the days of sharing.
If you are doing a figure that is sitting try molding against something like the edge of a cake pan. Once fondat has time to set a bit you really cannot go back and try to reshape it such as the legs. If they were allowed to sit for a day or so yes they will crack. It is best to put all the parts together because of shrinking.
I was trying to get the legs to bend slightly only a few minutes after putting the red and orange together. I tried having "her" sit on the edge of an upside down pan and put something under the legs to provide some support so the fondant wouldn't be pulling on its own weight but that didnt work either. So it wasn't like I waited a real long time.
I used Satin Ice fondant. I am wondering if it is easier to work with MMF? Or if I should have added gumpaste? That is why I figure a hands on session would be better for me ..so I can show someone more "qualified" what is happening.
The wrinkling in the arms was about an hour after I made it. I finally gave up and said .."most people would have some wrinkles in their clothes". It seemed the more I tried to fix it...the worse it got.
I made the two peices separate cuz when I tried to "push" them together..they both lost the shape I wanted and, again, cracks and wrinkles. These cracks aren't big dry defined cracks...more like .
I was going to show you what i meant with some playdoh...
but..the batteries in my digital camera just died and I don't have any more.
I will check out Lynn's Cake and Candy Supplies and check out the ICES website.
Thanks for all of your help.
I am a face painter/clown/balloon twister and me and my fellow clowns, etc. get together on a regular basis to practice and teach each other. Too bad cake decorating doesn't have something like that. That's what I was checking into to..day of sharing might be it.
Thanks again.
MMF is very touchy. I use satin ice and really have liked it a lot. I am sticking with the elephant skin then. The wrinking could be that is soft ans settling. If I start to repeat myself it is from a long cake day!It is a small figure and and not heavy.
I can help you out if you like. I don't know how qualified I am but I can try to show you what I know. You can check out my website to see some of my work. I have a link with my personal email on there also.
It is hard to translate how to do things or explain things in words!
Since I like to bake... I figured I would incorporate that into my clowning too...so my name is Cupcake the Clown. I have an apron and a chef hat as part of my costume. Kind of girly. But. I do have a plain hat with a flower on it and a vest that I wear if I need to be more "non-girly". Most girls love my costume though. I do a lot of corporate events..company picnics, etc. ...most of the time it doesn't matter if you are a "girl" clown or "boy" clown. B-day parties are a little different.
Regarding ICES..is there a MN chapter and/or a MN Day of Sharing? I couldn't find anything on the website that was for local stuff. Maybe I am not looking in the right place though.
I was just checking out your website. Wow - Is that pink wedding cake drapped in fondant that looks like silk fabric? AMAZING. YOU ARE EXTREMELY TALENTED.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the sugar bubbles. Now that is somethhing that I would like to learn as well...I think it would be cute to do a clown cake carrying balloons (sugar bubbles) My 3 boys would get a kick out of eating those...you can eat them right? I really don't make a lot of cakes for sale. Most of what I do is for family. I have 4 sisters and with their kids and grandkids...I generally make one a month, sometimes two.
Is that you in the sugar stacking contest? So you are like ...really good if you can enter cake competitions. I just sit and watch the few I have seen on the Food Network in awe with my mouth hanging open thinking..."no way will I EVER be that good"
Fun to watch though.
Yup that was me. Thansks for the kind words. The pink cake is all fondant draped all the way to the bottom of the cake. if you look close the real satin starts at the base of the cake.
I am lets say non cneventional with my techniques! I make do with what I have and my bubbles are one of my favorite things to do! yes you can eat them also!
I have been in the designer wedding cake challenge but you jsut see my running around and my cake sveral times. The sugar cube event will air during world record breakers week-I am the smiling chinese one! We all failed and the girl in the minnesota shirt got to about forty inches and I was at a little over two feet.
I went to culinary but did not di cakes there. everything I know is self taught so If I can do so can you!
Yeah..it would be great if you could email me the newsletter. I need to make sure to get the date down..so I don't take a clown or face painting job. However, I am short on cash these days so sometimes I have to take the job. I am attending a balloon class tomorrow with a clown friend of mine. One session is on hats and the other on balloon bouquets. I thought maybe I could incorporate cookie bouquet and balloon bouquet together. We'll see.
So, at this ICES event, do I have to make a cake to share? Mine would definitely PALE in comparison to what everyone else probably would bring.
Have you been to one of these "Day of Sharing" before?
Sorry about all the questions.
Hi, I know how you feel about the cracking, i made the funniest cake topper of a half naked lady, popping out of a cake for a friends birthday, and the following day it had cracks in it. 
After that i started reading up on it, and it seems that most of the time when fondant cracks its because it was too dry. I came across this post.. hope it helps
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-24881-fondant.html+figurines
karmic
I just did a cake with fondant. It was only my 2nd time making a cake with it. It too started to crack after I got it all put on the cake. What I did, was rub a little bit of Crisco all over the cake. It seemed to work like a charm. By the next morning the Crisco had soaked into the fondant and the cake was nice and soft without the cracking.
I don't know if one should do this or not. But it worked for me.
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