Fantabulous Food! Making Marshmallow Fondant

I volunteered to make a special cake for a certain friend of mine. That's really all I can say as it is a surprise, so I can't show you what the cake will be, but I will once the cat is out of the bag :)

Anyway, I said I would try to make this cake and it would be carved into a shape and then covered with fondant, neither of which I have ever done before. Luckily, my best friend Leigh has done cakes as a side business before (she used to operate under Cake Or Death Cakes, but stopped when her son got a little too active to just sit there while she worked), and being the good friend she is, she volunteered her expertise to help me out. So, last night, I started texting her with questions and she said I could either buy my fondant (but the kind I can get locally isn't very good) or I could make my own marshmallow fondant. I chose the latter.

So, I scoured the world wide web and came across this website for a recipe and then bombarded Leigh with random questions throughout the day. Going by the recipe on whatscookingamerica.net, I started off by nuking my 16 ounces of marshmallows with 2 tbsps of water in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time and stirring.

I was very surprised at how quickly the marshmallows were coming together because of the water. It really went very well. This was how it looked - a white bowl of soupy deliciousness :)

Next I smeared my counter top with crisco and poured 3/4 of a 2lb bag of powdered sugar (I couldn't fin the brand the website recommended, so I bought Publix brand) on top of the greased mess. Doesn't it look like cocaine? Just saying. It would have made for an awkward visit by a random authority. Anyway...

I couldn't get pictures of the next part because I was so greasy and then so sticky. So I will describe it to you: One big white powdery mess with sticky goo all over your hands. Yeah. It was messy. I basically poured the really hot marshmallow goo onto the powdered sugar, and just started kneading it together. It went very well at first, then as the batter starts to get thicker, it gets a bit more difficult. I gradually added the remaining 1/4 of the bag of powdered sugar and I ended up having to add a little more water to keep it elastic, but it is on an "as needed" basis. After I worked the dough sufficiently, I greased the white blob well with crisco and put it in a ziploc bag.

I have to say, I was quite proud of my self. I thought it would be much harder than it was, and the result really did come out looking like fondant I've seen used by friends or people on tv. It tasted great too, like a thick and chewy marshmallow :) I guess that's the dangerous part of baking something sweet is you keep breaking off little pieces to taste it.

So, there is my Fantabulous Food! for this week. I can't wait to show you the cake this was for :) It's still in progress, but it really is coming out well - much better than I thought my first fondant cake would be!