Decorate The Cake: September 2011

The next project is a wonderfully detailed tutorial by Sherrie Ortiz showing some of the new lace molds -- Thank you SO MUCH Sherrie for this project!

I started out with this 4 tier cake blank because I was redoing my dummies.

These are the molds I was using. There are 3 shown but I just used the two with the same pattern in the end.

First step is the design process. Deciding what goes where. The flexible molds are nice for this because you can fold them to into the areas to see just how it would look. As you can see I was undecided. It’s all part of the process.

HOW to use the molds:

I really liked these molds. They are very easy to use. Gum paste or fondant is fine depending on what you want to do with them. I think they would make pretty cupcake toppers too. I first marked them with a sharpie to show where the patterns match up.

This makes the process much easier.

Next roll out the fondant fairly thin but not so much you can see through it. Too thin and the lace will tear when you pick it up. #1 on a Kitchen aid roller if you have one.

Place the fondant on top of the lace base (the bigger part) and then press with your hand enough to see some of the impression.

Now add the TOP of the mold matching the marker spots and press firmly till you see the edges of the fondant “break away”

Pull the fondant all the way off and take the TOP of the mold off. Use your finger to push any excess or rough edges into the mold. If you have a tear you could try to patch it at this time if you want.

If you need a lot of these you can store them under a plastic flap so you can stream line your work. If they need to sit for a longer amount of time I will lay a damp towel OVER the PLASTIC to help hold in moisture. I actually cut out all these parts and had dinner before I came back to finish the cake. I have done this as much as 24 hours ahead of time. Still just as fresh.

So I was mixing up different ideas for placement and nothing was working for me. I was thinking about piping something below the lace or add accents of something but I was not really in the right frame of mind. So I scratched that idea and went a totally different direction with swags. Here is a tip if you have a hard time visualizing where a swag should go. I use red floss and pins to hang the string so I can see better.

Bad idea. Just not right.

So getting to the point. I used a simple texture pin on the fondant that was rolled out to a 1 on the kitchen aid (not too thin) then I used the lace parts to accent the corners as shown.