I'm molding my first real figures with MMF for my son's bday cake on Sunday. I'm trying to make a beluga whale and am having a hard time getting it smooth. I have creases / folds where I joined pieces together or tried forming the MMF that I can't get to be completely smooth. I have greased my hands with Crisco and I warmed the MMF up in the microwave to soften it for about 8 seconds. WHAT AM I DOING WRONG??? Please help or I will be up all night cursing at the poor, innocent whale!

...is it a mmf beluga whale or is it mmf covered cake beluga whale?

It's an MMF whale . . . the cake will be a sheet cake and will be mostly buttercream (dark blue to look like the arctic ocean) and about 1/4 of the cake will be covered with MMF to look like snow / ice with (hopefully) an igloo and a seal or polar bear. So I'm working with a chunk of MMF to shape the whale's head and top part of it's body which will be poking out of the water, and then I'll do the tail coming out of the water, too. I have the exact shape I want but I have creases and folds showing so it isn't completely smooth like everyone else's MMF figures.

Well, I know ya said you've warmed it up and greased it...but thats what I would tell ya....I made a baby boy for a shower cake and I had to start over twice with it cuz of wrinkles that wouldnt go away. Maybe if your not too far along you can try again from new....??? Its hard to tell without seeing it...I'm sure it'll turn out great!!!
Keep workin' it

Thanks . . . maybe I need to warm it up a bit longer. I'll keep trying! Maybe i'll just have to settle for an elderly beluga whale, complete with wrinkles!

i'm of no use but just wanted to encourage you to keep trying! i'm actually doing my first mmf figures this weekend too.

have you tried working with gumpaste? It may be easier, and it will dry stiffer than the mmf. I made a lily pad with a lily flower usinf rolled fondant and it was not strong enough to hold up shape. I also used mmf to make two huge loop bows, and they also ended up having peices brake off on the big day. So I am going to try to work with gumpaste and buttercream for my next cake(my husbands bday cake), and I will hopefully post it. Good luck, and don't worry every cake you make will get easier, and this one will turn out great!

it sounds like it's too dry, i've done this-i knead in too much powdered sugar then it's just a pain to work with. the good thing about mmf, is it's pretty cheap. it you can't get it to work for you, i would make up a new batch. i usually knead it what seems like not quite enough, then let it rest for a little bit, it seems like then it stiffens up to the right consistency.

I may just not be a MMF kind of person. My beluga whale did turn out very well (after a couple of HOURS) and it's still drying. I tried a polar bear and did not have good luck. Aside from the creases, my biggest problem was shaping one piece where I wanted it and then adding other pieces on. I shaped the polar bear's head and got it exactly where I wanted it. Then, I needed to add it to the body and in trying to connect the head to the body, I ended up squishing the head and the body. So I just added all of the pieces (head, arms, legs) and figured I'd get it all to be one piece and then shape it but I still would mess up one area while trying to shape another. Does this make sense??? Can anyone advise me on the shaping?

i would shape the individual pieces and then glue them together. some people use thinned royal icing fof glue, i usually use equal parts meringue powder and water

Hi there,
I just wanted to let you know that I made a frog figure out of mmf, and I actually used water to help smooth it out. You can see it in my photos, but I just kept wetting my finger tips and smoothing it out like that. I hope that helps!! Good luck!

I agree that frog was soooo sooo cute....The whole cake was just fabulous....someday I hope I will be able to do such cute things.

Okay. I finished my Baby Beluga cake! Baby Beluga turned out better than I thought (though it took a LONG time to do).

This was my first fondant cake (except for the one in my Wilton class but I don't really count that). My vision initially was to make the whale, a few puffins, a polar bear, and maybe a seal. After working on the whale, I decided that was enough. I need a lot more practice.

in general, how long does it take most of you to make a fondant figure like this one??

WOW! Your whale cake turned out awesome! You did a great job! It looks really smooth and perfect!

Thanks for all of the nice comments you all said about my frog. If I can do it, you guys can do it as well! I took me a few tries, but thats what is so nice about mmf! And yes I did everything (legs, arms, etc.) separately and used water to make it all stick together. Some of them I had to do a few times, but it worked! My sisters birthday is this month so I may attempt a shoe! We'll see!

Thanks again, and your whale is fabulous!

Thanks heiser73 . . . I can't tell you how much effort went into that whale. So much more than I ever thought would be needed. I had such big plans to make a dolphin, a seal, a puffin . . . and fill the cake with arctic animals but at one point, I was ready to just throw out the MMF and melt some chocolate for transfers.

Thanks for responding about how you did your frog . . . I guess what I tried to do was to eliminate the "seams" between parts so when I put an arm on the polar bear, I'd try to smooth out the MMF where it met to make it look like one solid piece and that didn't work at all. So do you just leave it so that it looks like the arms, legs, etc . . . were initially separate pieces?

Thanks!

Hey! It turned out great! I love the whale and the cake! Too cute!