Fondant Banana Tutorials

Banana & Tomatoes are the topic of discussion in Zion's school for this quarter. There was a home project for parents & kids to do along. We had to familiarise the kids about these fruits & do a project with the use of these fruits or any thing creative.  It was the last day & we had to submit the project to the school. Since I had guest at home, I had totally forgotten about this. Upon checking the date suddenly realised that this was pending.  Since I love working with fondant, thought why not make these fruits out of fondant. I had some left over fondant from previous cakes in the fridge, so thought will utilise it for this project. My friend was around while I was making these & she was totally shocked to see me do it fast. She is the one your video graphed this:) Thx Annu for supporting me in this video.

Zion was very excited seeing me do this for him. He actually wanted to eat them:) He was saying mamma..Banana banana.. give give...:)  He some how manged to damage the tomatoes & thankfully it reached the school in good shape. I have taken a video tutorial on how to make Banana's. Hope you will enjoy this video tutorials.

 

Tayo Cake

 

Zion's Birthday is on 15th June, since 15th fell on Saturday we kept the school party & friends party on the 14th. Zion has a lot of friends in the Condo & I thought of inviting his friends in the evening for a small Birthday celebration. I decided to make Tayo cake & add in some figurines from the Barnyard cake. Since this party also was on the same day as school party, I was left with limited time. Making Tayo cake was really easy. I baked & frosted the cake the previous night. The cake was sitting in the fridge & it was easier for me to come back from school & just do the fondant decoration. Thankfully the animal figurines were not attacked badly in Zion’s school. Adding farm animals was an instant idea & just went with the flow. If you have a closer look at the cake you will realise that it’s very shabbily doneJ The school party was at 3pm & by the time I got back home it was 4. I was left with only 1.5 hours to do the fondant decoration. I was again very happy with the way the cake looked. My hubby was feeling so proud & kept saying that you are really very creative. He couldn’t believe that in such a short time I would make it look so good. Now it sounds like self-praise right? Hehehehe…

Well the evening party also went on well. Zion along with his friends danced on Gangnam style song. Zion was very excited to see “Tayo the little Bus”cake. He in fact was very unhappy when we cut the cake. He kept screaming oh no… Tayo, tayo…… poor fella kept re-joining Tayo’s head back to the cake. LOL:) After the cake was done I called this cake " Tayo the little Bus goes on a picnic to Barnyard with Farm animals":) For the Barnyard cake I had some idea on how I wanted it to turn out but for this one it was all instant imagination. I can say more like a cut copy paste style with all that repetition of farm animals:)

 

How I made the cake:

1. I baked a Vanilla pound cake in 9 inch square pan. For Pound cake recipe click here.  The cake turned out 2 inch in height, it’s a very short cake & that’s what I wanted. I cut the cake into 3 piece vertically & just layered one on top of the other. So I dint so any shaping:) This was very easy.
2. On each layer I filled some Vanilla butter cream icing. & crumb coated the entire cake with Butter cream.
3. The fondant I have used here is again Home made fondant. I used edible black marker on Tayo for the black colour windows.
4. The Pond water is made from Wilton edible gel.
5. I piped the green grass from the left over whipped cream that I had.
6. If you want to know more about cake decoration & more details on the cake, Join my group budding cake decorators on face book. Click here to join.

 

Barnyard Cake

I can’t believe that my tiny little boy is already 2! I still remember how little my baby was. He was just as big as 1 ltr pepsi bottle. Most of you already know that my lill boy was born 5 weeks earlier than the due date. Today my super active toddler is all grown up & running all around. He has already mastered all skills that are needed for him to outshine. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family & the last 2 years as a full time mommy has been super fun. 

My first fondant decorated cake was Zion's 1^st Bday cake. The theme was Jungle safari & I was really happy with the outcome. (Click here) However there was a lot of scope for improvement & over this last 1 year I have learnt a lot on my own in cake decoration.  Baked & decorated so many cakes for my friend’s parties. I never knew that this field would make me so popular.

Coming back to today's post, I had decided that for Zion’s 2^nd Bday I have to make a very special cake. The ideas kept changing in my mind. My son’s fav Cartoons are Team Umi zoomi & Tayo the little Bus. I initially thought that I will make Team Umizoomi cake, but later changed my mind & decided to go ahead with Barn yard cake. Why Barn yard? Coz farm animals are the topic of discussion in Zion’s school for this semester. I thought it would be great idea to make this cake for his school celebration as all the kids would love to see these animal figurines.

I dint want to bake a lot of cake & waste. Hence I decided to make the Barn house with rice cereals & for the bottom I made a 9 inch round vanilla cake.  The cake was more than enough for 25 people. Every child including teachers loved the cake. It was such a joy watching all the kids enjoying eating it. The teachers were all praises & couldn’t believe that it was home made. Both my hubby & I had gone to the school for the cake cutting. Z was acting like a leader in class & I could see that he was trying to show off that it’s his cakeJ. He was after the tractor & had already eaten one tractor at home & now was game for another one too:)

 

I Baked a Vanilla Butter cake very similar to my Pound cake, with some extra butter in it. The cake had a 3 layer filling of Chocolate Butter cream icing. I definitely don't have any step by step tutorials for this. Please feel  free to ask me if you have any questions.

 

For Pound cake recipe click here.  I baked 2 batches of cake to make it this tall.

Chocolate Butter cream recipe:

300 gms Butter (I used Amul Butter)

7 - 8 Cups sifted Icing sugar

1/4 cup heavy Whipping cream

1 Tspn Vanilla Essence

1/4 cup +2 Tbsp Coco powder

Pinch of salt

Method:

1. Make sure butter is at room temperature & not very soft.
2. In the bowl cream butter until smooth and creamy, 2 to 3 minutes with an electric beater on medium speed.
3. Add 7 cups icing sugar one cup at a time. Once the icing sugar is well mixed add whipping cream, coco powder and vanilla; mix until light and fluffy. (for 3 to 4 mins) If you feel the frosting consistency is not right, then add in some more icing sugar.
4. With a spatula fill each layer with 1/2 inch frosting & crumb coat the entire cake with this icing.
5. Let the cake rest in the freezer for 10 mins until the crumb coat sets.
6. Now remove cake out & do the final frosting around 1/2 inch thick on the outside.

 

Note:

1. Most of the figurines were made out of home made Marshmallow fondant. For recipe click here
2. The figurines were made 4 days in advance & I put them in a air tight container.
3. Rest of the fondant that I used for decoration was home made Fondant. I just followed Veena's recipe for this. Check her site here for the recipe. This fondant turned out so good & tasty. I could eat the fondant just like that. This is the best fondant I have ever tasted. Thanks Veena again for sharing your recipe.
4. The Barn house is made of Rice cereal. I just used 5 cups of rice cereals & 2 cups of marshmallow to make this. Pop the marshmallow in the microwave for 1 minute until its melted. Now mix in the rice cereal & make it a soft dough. Now you can shape it to any shape you want
5. To make the farm animals, I watched some tutorials on youtube. Pig Tutorial

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jungle Safari Cake

Jungle Safari Cake that I made for Zion's 1st Birthday party

Helicopter view of the cake

I made the Chocolate cupcakes & the stand too

I have been so busy for the last 3 weeks running around to put things together for my son Zion's first birthday. Finally the Party on 16th June 2012 went on very well & I am so glad that I baked & decorated his birthday cake. All the guests said wow... & just loved the cake. You won't believe that I wasn't getting good sleep for many nights thinking about how the cake would turn out on the final day. I felt as if I was preparing for the board Exam. This was the first time I baked such a huge cake.


The birthday theme was Jungle Safari & I made a jungle theme cake.  It was a 4 kilo Chocolate cake with Chocolate butter cream icing. The top layer cake was chocolate fondant. I decorated the cake only the morning of 16th. It took me about 2.5 hrs to decorate the entire cake. 


In between all this preparation my son was sick for the last 1 week. He had high fever & I had to juggle between taking care of him & at the same time going out picking stuff for decoration, baking & bla bla bla..... 


I will be posting the recipe soon for this cake. Right now Zion is still sick. I am also too tired after all the running around & sleepless night. I am going to start a small home business & sell home made cakes in Singapore. I am all excited about this & I hope this works out well.

My liill handsome boy is getting ready for the party