This past weekend, Mallory, the executive pastry chef at our restaurant, got married. When I first met Mal back in April, she told me she was planning her wedding for the fall and I decided I was going to make her wedding cake. The thing about pastry chefs is most of us are crazy, type-A personalities. A lot make their own wedding cakes, something that is insane given how stressful planning a wedding can be on its own. I remember reading somewhere that one cake designer made 5 separate cakes for her own wedding. After much persuasion on my part, Mal agreed to relinquish control to me.
Tiny detail work
The wedding was a super-small event, with just the bride and groom's immediate families in attendance. We decided to do a two-tier cake (chocolate and vanilla). I had the idea to decorate the cake with pale pink, white and ivory fondant ribbon roses, and Mal loved the design I had in mind. On Friday, I baked and iced the cakes, made my fondant, covered the cakes, and formed all the roses. When I first started making fondant-covered cakes, I used to buy fondant. It almost always had this terrible taste and weird smell. My cake-decorating unit at the
French Culinary Institute included
Colette Peter's fondant recipe, and now I always use this. It's incredibly easy to make, rolls out beautifully and just tastes like sugar. I've included the recipe at the bottom of this post.
Saturday, all I had left to do was assemble the tiers and attach the flowers. I arrived to work and found Mallory with the cakes in front of her, ready to finish it herself. So much for relinquishing control...Typical pastry chef behavior! I forced her to step away from the cake and quickly finished it before she could jump in again.
Colette Peter's Rolled Fondant Recipe
makes enough to cover 2 8" cakes
2 pounds powdered sugar + extra for kneading
1/4 c cold water
1 Tbsp powdered gelatin
1/2 c light corn syrup
1 1/2 Tbsp glycerine (Wilton makes this and it can be found at craft stores)
- Put all powdered sugar in bowl of stand mixer.
- Combine gelatin with cold water. Allow to soften about 5 minutes.
- Heat the gelatin, stirring until it is dissolved and clear.
- Add the corn syrup and glucose.
- With the mixer running (paddle attachment), add the gelatin mixture.
- Mix until well blended, scrape out fondant and knead until stiff. Add more powdered sugar if mixture is sticky.
- Form into a ball and wrap tightly with plastic wrap.
- Rest fondant 8 hours before using (I'm usually in a rush and skip this step without too many problems).
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