Fondant Icing for cup cake decoration

To make Tiger cake topper you will need:
White Fondant
Food Colours red, yellow, black

Other items
Cocktail stick
Plastic mat to work on
Icing sugar for dusting
Edible Glue to stick the ears and eyes

I recently visited Cake International at eXcel Exhibition centre in London. It is a large show dedicated to Baking and Cake products. Many classes were available to learn decorating tips, tutorials in modelling sugar paste and icing techniques.

I particularly enjoyed the class in modelling animal faces for cup cake toppers. The class was an introduction to working with fondant icing, colouring it and making models from it. As the animals were bright in colours the first and foremost tip was to learn how to colour the fondant in vibrant colours as although it sounds simple enough, too much colour will make the fondant too soft and hard to handle, too little and it will not achieve the required colour.
Here is a video to see how best to colour the fondant.

How to colour Fondant:
Step 1
Take a ball of white fondant and flatten it out.
Step 2
Using a cocktail stick dip it in the food colour and rub the colour on to the centre of the flattened fondant.
Step3
 Fold both the sides of the fondant into the centre and roll it up.
Step 4
Knead the fondant until the colour is equally dispersed.

 

Having learnt how to create my animal cup cake models, I decided to attempt what I had learnt at home. Exited and eager to spend a relaxing afternoon creating my master pieces I made a cup of tea and set about with my project. However things did not quite go as planned, I discovered very quickly that  the technique to colour the fondant  is critical otherwise you will end up with food colour stains on your hands, clothes and surfaces. I also found out  that there is a very likely chance that you will transfer the colour to everything else you touch. This is exactly what happened to me when disaster struck whilst I was working on my creations, first in my haste I knocked over the cup of tea which resulted in the carpet being tea stained and drenched. I had food colour on my worktop, fingers and on my beige chinos too. Flustered that my relaxing afternoon was slowly turning into an afternoon of hell, I proceeded to clear up. Luckily I was able to remove the tea stains  fairly easily using the Vanish  carpet cleaning shampoo. However the food colour stains certainly proved a little more difficult but Vanish  stain removal tips  are wonderful and I managed to clean the stains easily  and finish my tiger cup cake topper without any further mishaps.

How to make a Tiger cup cake topper from fondant icing.

Watch this space as next time I will attempt the other animal toppers with more confidence and with better preparation in case I encounter any more mishaps.