Here's a quick tutorial for Decorate The Cake's cute paw print mold. I used black fondant and mixed in some tylose powder. Tylose powder makes the fondant dry faster and harder. I rarely use gumpaste anymore, and instead use fondant with tylose for modeling or making flowers. Start with a small ball of the fondant/tylose and then press it into the mold. It may take a few tries, but soon you'll figure out the right amount of fondant needed to fit perfectly in the pad or the toes.
If the fondant is not wanting to stay in the mold or is sticking to your fingers, dust on a little corn starch.
Press the fondant into the mold and continue with the rest of the paw prints.
Let the paw prints dry for an hour or so in the mold. If you are in a hurry, you could put the mold in the freezer for 10 minutes. When I was ready to flip them out, I put a cake circle on top, flipped it over and then carefully peeled back the mold. Most of the prints came out easily, but I did have to help a few of them out with a small paint brush. I use a paint brush as opposed to a toothpick or fingernail (yikes!) so I won't leave a mark in the fondant prints.
Make more prints, if needed. The bottom tier of my cake was a 12" round and I used about 20 paw prints to go around the cake. When you're ready to put them on your cake, first put a small dot of buttercream on the back.
Then using a toothpick or paintbrush, pick up the print by the buttercream dot and carefully place it on the cake.
I loved having this mold for this cake. I wanted all of the prints to be basically identical. I'm afraid if I would have tried to model them by hand, they wouldn't have been so uniform in shape and size. And it would have taken me FOREVER to make each one by hand because I'm such a perfectionist - I seriously could spend 20 minutes making one print!!! The other thing I like about the mold is the raised or rounded dimension it gives the print. Something I couldn't achieve with a Cricut or cutting a stencil by hand with an X-acto knife.
This mold is very versatile. You could use melted chocolate in a squeeze bottle or even isomalt. It could also be used as a texture mat. Above all - just HAVE FUN playing with your cake!
Guest post by Charla Tatom
Products Used:
Similar Item:
Posts
That is so cute! Thanks for the excellent tutorial showing how to do those little details, it helps out a ton! =)
ReplyDeleteWhere did you get that mold ? Great job!!
ReplyDeleteRachel - we are working on getting the paw print mold on the website. Should be there shortly.
ReplyDeleteHi. This paw print mold is wonderful. Do you still have this on your website? Thanks
ReplyDeleteYes, the link at the bottom of the blog post. http://www.decoratethecake.com/store/WsDefault.asp?One=1514
ReplyDeleteHi. What is the difference between the small and large mat? Is it just the overall size of the mat itself, or are the paw prints smaller on the smaller mat?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.decoratethecake.com/store/WsDefault.asp?One=1514
DeleteOn the large mat the paw prints are deeper and you could fill and pull out like Charla did on this blog post. The paw prints also circle the mat with the outer ring being larger and getting smaller towards the middle of the mat.
http://www.decoratethecake.com/store/WsDefault.asp?One=665
The similar mat the paw prints are more shallow and would be better used for lightly texturing the surface of a project.
Thank you for the clarification, Glenda. This helps a lot as I am looking for a cutter, or mold if I can't find a cutter, rather than just an impression mat. I'm having a hard time finding a cutter so looking for molds instead. I really like the shape of the paw prints on your mold.
ReplyDelete