How Do I Make Farm Animals Using Mmf?
Decorating By runmamarun Updated 29 Oct 2007 , 9:54pm by ceshell
I Making a barnyard cake for sunday, i'm not sure how i'm going to make the barn(Gingerbread,cake,ricekrispies). I'm just starting to make decorations out of MMF, I just dont know how to make the animals so they stand up. And that they dont get saggy, do i use Gum Tex?
Try mixing som Gum Tex with your fondant. You may want the legs harden some before you put the body on so they don't get "saggy"! You can use a little bit of fondant mixed with water to make a glue to make sure body pieces stick together. I only have ducks, chickens, ferrets, and a rabbit on my farm cake I have posted, but I have made pigs and goats using the fondant with Gum Tex and it worked well! Hope that helps!!
I'd add gumtex for sure, but it would also help if you allowed the body parts to dry before assembling the animals if you're making them in pieces. Stick spaghetti into any appropriate parts before drying (don't forget to poke the spaghetti hole into the "receiving" piece too) for added support when you attach all the pieces. Good luck, animals are so fun!
Thanks for the wonderful tips, i never thought to use spag. to hold the body parts together. Hopefully it all goes well.
You're welcome. I learned that, of course, here on CC 
. You should still use royal icing, dissolved fondant or even just water as "glue" too but the spag. helps a LOT - I did it for the zoo animals in my avatar and none of them lost their heads lol.
50-50 with gumpaste it dries up faster without the sagging.
In my pix I have some fondant critters I did and I have them all in some sort of sitting position for stability on the cake. They are all done from fondant with water for the glue. Other than my dropping the box and now all their heads are leaning to see what's behind me, I haven't had any problem with them falling over or heads falling off. Also when you use spaghetti, keep in mind that the moisture in the fondant soaks up into the noodle and makes it wet, thus not very helpful. 
Maybe toothpicks would be better than spagetti?
Also, I've done the 50/50 gumpaste/fondant thing before. But if I just want to add gumtex to my fondant, how much would I use? I bought all the stuff to make gumpaste because I couldn't find the bag and then found the bag, but it's all gone. So I have the gumtex and would like to use it. Just need to figure out how? Anyone?
ceshell - adorable animals! Any tips or instruction you wouldn't mind sharing? I've never done animals before and I have a zoo cake to do soon. Will definitely use your spag. tip - thanks! Also, approx. how much to you add to your fondant?
Thanks. Well that's a tough question on how much. I thought I read here somewhere to add one teaspoon to a batch of fondant, but of course I was only adding it to a small portion of my batch...so I just kind of winged it by adding a dash here or there. How's that for an answer?! 
As for the animals, they were only my second attempt at making figures but I think the most important thing I put into practice for them was, don't stack pcs till the light ones are dried or else the light pcs may get smooshed. I.e. in my case, I let the legs dry first. (I also used spaghetti to help hold the body atop the legs while it dried into place.) For these guys I really just rolled fondant into spheres and then shaped the spheres as desired - I know that's not a wealth of info but it was really that simple! For the lion I made a circular collar and then cut into it with my fingernail, though I have seen much cuter ways to make the mane on other cakes here. The only other tip I'd add is be sure to poke a hole/indentation for anywhere you might want to "stick" a piece of fondant into/onto...i.e. the tail, and be prepared to get creative with household objects needed to prop your figure into place while certain pieces dry. Here's a pic of my animals' behinds in case it helps http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=57948
Although the spagh. picks up moisture, it's more for sturdiness while the figure is drying. Whatever "glue" you use (in my case it was dissolved fondant) should really do the holding, so that by the time the spag. softens the body parts are firmly glued in place. Toothpicks are fine if you are 100% certain the characters won't be nibbled on; in my case my daughter chomped every one of them so I was glad I used spagh. Oh last tip on that, poke those holes in BEFORE the fondant starts to dry! Sounds obvious but it's easy to overlook. I basically assembled each character with spaghetti sticks in place, then pulled off the body parts to dry, and reassembled later. If your fondant is sturdy enough/dries fast enough you might not even need this step, I just wanted to make sure to avoid sagging.
Actually if you want to see a cute animal made sooo easily it would make your head spin, check out Aine2's site, she has a great little video of how to make an elephant. She makes it look so easy!
Maybe toothpicks would be better than spagetti?
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!! If someone bites into it not knowing there's a toothpick in the center they could be in a very bad way! Spaghetti is fine, but I don't use it because I make the bodies in such a way that they stand on their own and don't need internal supports. But that's my way of doing fondant critters, not everyone's. Just something to consider.
ceshell - I used some of your animals for inspiration (and acknowledged you for it), I hope you dont' mind.
I posted the pic of the cake, it's in my pics if anyone is interested. I really enjoyed making the animals. It was fun! Thanks for all your help!
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