The past few years have seen me work more and more with fondant. There are some great tutorials out there on the web and in books. Sometimes just looking at a picture is enough for me to figure out how to shape the fondant. Sometimes the finish is not as smooth as I would like but I am a work in progress!
I love making toppers for a simple round cake, turning it into something quite special, I can spread the decorating over a day or 2 to enable the fondant to dry out and then it only takes me about an hour to cover and place the toppers onto the cake. Feels less stressful then spending hours doing it all at once!
Pinterest is a wonderful source of decorated cakes. 3 of my favourite cakes from the recent past came from pins I had seen. The first one here was pretty simple with just some fondant modelling and a lot of buttercream!
The original cake that inspired me had a smooth finish but I decided to make the cake look like a giant snow scene with snowmen springing up around the mounds of the white stuff! Plus this is a huge time saver! I used the original picture to help me shape my snowmen rather than searching for a tutorial. I did the same with the candy cane trim. See the original here.
I did a very similar cake the previous year with a snowy finish.
I found the inspiration photo for this cake before I joined Pinterest, and now can't find it! There are plenty of examples of these types of cakes around. Again I had no tutorial to follow so I just moulded the fondant how I saw fit. Firstly there is a second smaller cake on top for the 'igloo'. This cake was made from half a ball pan. I found a small plastic rectangle on my home office desk and used this to imprint the fondant on the 'igloo' for bricks. I rolled a piece of fondant and wrapped it around a cardboard tube for the entrance to the 'igloo' while it dried to hold it's shape. The trees are made from ice cream cones covered in green buttercream piped using a leaf tip. The penguins were hand modelled from the picture. I sprinkled a liberal dash of edible glitter and it was done!
For last years cake I took inspiration from this picture.
I liked the idea of having Santa on top of a cake with his reindeer and a snowman. I searched for some tutorials and used this, this, this and this as a guide. I made the toppers 2 days in advance so that I could place them easily on top of the cake. The holly was made using an old cookie cutter. Santa was a pain due mainly to how soft the fondant was. Next time I would add cornflour to help firm it up!
For last years cake I took inspiration from this picture.
I was very pleased with the overall look of this cake.
Lastly, if you find that a whole cake is just too much for your gathering, howabout cupcakes instead? You can really let your creative flair go to town by making each cupcake individual. Or you can pick a simple theme, like holly, and just make a bunch of matching toppers to place on top once iced. For the cupcakes below I decided to make them all different.
I knew I wanted Santa, reindeer and snowmen so used this picture as my main source of inspiration. I also liked the way other festive themes were used on the cupcakes.
Some I completely copied as is as I thought they were just too nice not to! I purchased some tiny cookie cutter shapes from Hobbycraft that weren't actually meant to be used as cookie cutters but did the job with small fondant shapes. They were actually supposed to be used for craft projects like scrapbooking, but they have come in very handy when I need a tiny shape!
I wanted a grand topper for the top cupcake so formed a Christmas tree from a large piece of fondant and even used one of my tiny cookie cutter shapes as it's star!
Lastly, if you find that a whole cake is just too much for your gathering, howabout cupcakes instead? You can really let your creative flair go to town by making each cupcake individual. Or you can pick a simple theme, like holly, and just make a bunch of matching toppers to place on top once iced. For the cupcakes below I decided to make them all different.
I knew I wanted Santa, reindeer and snowmen so used this picture as my main source of inspiration. I also liked the way other festive themes were used on the cupcakes.
Some I completely copied as is as I thought they were just too nice not to! I purchased some tiny cookie cutter shapes from Hobbycraft that weren't actually meant to be used as cookie cutters but did the job with small fondant shapes. They were actually supposed to be used for craft projects like scrapbooking, but they have come in very handy when I need a tiny shape!
I wanted a grand topper for the top cupcake so formed a Christmas tree from a large piece of fondant and even used one of my tiny cookie cutter shapes as it's star!
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