Reel Around the Fondant

 (shout out to Christian Gridelli for the title!)

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. Most of that is because work has been crazy busy lately. I've been training new hires, which always takes more energy than regular work, because you have to talk about everything you're doing the whole time and go slower than normal so they catch on. Fleh.

People said I was virtually dead, but they were so wrong; I've been baking up a storm.  Last weekend, I made petit fours for my friends for Valentine's day. How nice. I even made another video for it, because the process might be interesting to some people. They would have been posted sooner, except when all was said and done, I realised that I didn't film the actual fondant part. And what would a fondant titled post be without the fondant? Ridiculous. That's what it would be. So I made another batch of fondant today and filmed it.

Here's the deal though. I feel awkward making videos. It's just me talking to a camera, so I don't really know what to talk about to make it interesting. And my approach to baking is kind of nerdy, so I feel like it doesn't really appeal to a wide audience. Also, I noticed afterward that I say "alright" at the beginning of every clip. I'll work on that.

So, if you're interested, this first video is how to make a genoise sponge cake.  Some people see no worth in it, but I do.  It will be the base for my petit fours. My genoise consisted of only eggs, sugar, butter, flour, and cocoa powder.




So genoise is usually brushed / sprayed with some sort of flavored syrup to give it flavor and moisture. I used a rose syrup -- equal parts sugar and water flavored with rose water. I also filled the cake (after splitting it in three layers) with raspberry jam, and then punched out circles with a biscuit cutter. (see where this is leading? little chocolate raspberry rose cakes. how freaking adorable.)

This next video is all about fondant, and in my opinion it is far more interesting than the genoise video. Now I'll bet you're thinking about that weird sugary play-doh that you've seen Duff and the Charm City crew drape over their creations. Well, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not really sure about the history of that stuff, but I'm pretty sure that it used to be called sugar paste.

Fondant, in this case, is a runny, sticky business. It's very versatile, and you've definitely had it before. I won't tell you about its many incarnations here, because I do that in the video, and I need to leave you with some reason to watch it.




So after I had this lump of sugaryness, I warmed it gently over a double boiler (you can't get it over like 100 degrees, because then the crystals that took you forever to make just melt away and it comes out lame). When it was pourable, I glazed the little cakes with it. Poured fondant is sort of transparent, so it looks brownish because my cake was chocolate.

Here are pictures of the cakes. The little pink design was just royal icing, a mix of egg white, lemon juice, and powdered sugar. Have you ever used that mixture to "glaze" a cake or cookie? It's fairly common, and essentially the cheater's version of poured fondant.

Coming soon -- Scott's KitchenAid debut!