Jungle Party birhtday cake.

Fondant, never heard of it before. And now I hear of it all the time while I´m heading out for new trends. The first decicion you have to make is do you want to do the fondant by yourself or do you buy ready one. I love challanges. So I googled for the right recipe. I found it on a german homepage. This lady is a real master of fondant cakes of all kind. Especially with flowers. She had very good comments on her site, so I gave it a try.

If you speak german you´ll find the recipe here:
http://tortentante.blogspot.com/2009/02/rezept-fur-rollfondant-sugarpaste.html

If not i translate it for you:

Recipe for sugerpaste fondant.

1 package of ground gelantine, 60 ml water, 120 ml glucose sirup or very thick sugar sirup.
1 Tsp glycerin, 1/2 Tsp citric acid or a couple drops of vanilla extract, 1/2 Tsp salt, 1000 gr. sifted powdered sugar.

dissolve the galatine in the water and let it soak about 10 Minutes. You can eather melt it in the microwave or in water quench. Add the sirup, salt, vanilla or citric acid and the glycerin.
If you want to have colored fondant, it´s the easiest way to add the food coloring now.
Now you sift 2/3rd of the powdered sugar in a bowl. You make a little hollow in the middle and pur the mixture in it. Kneat the liquid in with the dough hooks of your food processor.

+Afterwards you sift the remaining powdered sugar on your workspace and kneat it into the dough. Keep it airtight for one day. It will have the best consistence by than. The next day you have to kneat it throuhly bevor you´re rolling it out. If it´s a little dry and seams to crumble easy you can take a little shortening. Just grease your hands with it and kneat and repeat until you have your desired consistensy. Some sugar brands use more some less grease. I relly don´t know why. You can store the fondant in the fridge for about 6 month. Let it warm up to room temperature before you use it. It´s also a fun play dough for young children. And it´s definetly not as harmfull as salt dough if swallowed.

Wrap your cake totally in buttercream, before you cover it with fondant. This will smoothen out some edges. Roll the fondant out and wrap it around your rolling pin. This way you can transfer it onto your cake . Smooth it with a little rolling pin or use a special fondant smoother. Now you can try to make flowers or animals or whatever you like on your cake. I usually use a little fondant disolved in a little water for gluing parts together. If you want to model figures use a little gumpaste in your recipe. Unfortunatly I didn´t have any. And my animal heads where running away sometime. But on the end I made it. Leon loved the cake.....

You can also just cover the cake in fondant and buy some ready made cake toppers. Or use them as an inspiration. For excample on http://www.etsy.com/listing/57387045/giraffe-fondant-cake-toppers-cake

You love the cake but you really don´t want to spent the time... I love the cakes from www.pinkcakebox.com.