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There are a plethora of things for our kids to do outside during the summer, but when the heat becomes unbearable we must find indoor activities that keep our sanity together. I received a copy of Cake Decorating for review. All thoughts are my own.
My kids love spending time in the kitchen with me. This year has been especially fun as I’ve let them branch out more on their own. I will of course check on them, and require that they get permission to use the stove and oven, but they’ve made cookies without my help, Lemonade, Mac n’Cheese, and ramen.
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When we got the All-In-One Guide to Cake Decorating by Janice Murfitt, they couldn’t stop browsing through the pages. The gorgeous photos of finished cakes, and the easy to follow step by step photos had cake decorating on their mind. Suddenly they requests for birthday cakes became much more elaborate.
As the weather began to really heat up, I thought a fun activity would be to make some petit four cakes and let the kids play with fondant. I had hopes it would keep them both distracted and using the creative sides of their brain. I mean it’s basically like play-doh right? We just get to eat it at the end.
Now, the back of the book does have recipes for different types of frosting – marzipan, fondant, royal icing – but I thought it would be best to start with store bought fondant for our first go around. I found a tub of red and pink fondant on sale at Walmart, so that’s what we used.
To make the petit-fours I baked up a sheet cake. Cut it into 1″x1″ squares and then froze them. Frozen cakes are less crumbly to work with, and doesn’t affect the finished flavor or texture of the cake.
It totally worked! The kids spent days upon days playing with the fondant. Making little shapes to top their little cakes, and sometimes just making scenes of fondant on a plate. Some of the kids found they loved fondant and would eat it without cake, others just enjoyed the creative process of decorating a cake.
