Wednesday, January 19, 2011

0 Amaretto Truffle Icing and fondant flowers



I LOVE chocolate. Seriously, whoever said diamonds were a woman's best friend obviously was a man, because being a woman, I beg to differ--I think it is chocolate. I honestly don't know how I went 5 WHOLE YEARS without eating chocolate because of a bet with a good friend. Those definitely were years of sacrifice for me (and would you know I just received a letter from my friend indicating that she is on year 11 of no chocolate--can you say WILLPOWER?!)

Well, the past couple months have been hard--I am again off chocolate, this time because of my darling baby girl, who gets very fussy when I do eat it. Let's just say the holidays were very difficult--there was chocolate everywhere--but I resisted . . . until I got this book from my dad:

OK--that is a title I want put on vinyl lettering and plastered on my kitchen wall. There are soooo many amazing looking recipes in here that I just had to start trying them.

In this project I tried 2 of them. The cake was the Sinful Chocolate Cupcakes recipe and the icing was the Amaretto Truffle Icing recipe. Both looked delicious. I was slightly disappointed with the cupcake recipe, but then again all I had on hand was fat free sour cream, and it called for the fat-full stuff, so I'm guessing that may have had something to do with it. Still, not bad (but I am bound and determined to one day find the most perfect chocolate cake recipe, and will try recipe after recipe until I do).

On the other hand the Amaretto Truffle icing was delicious--and rich. Very rich. I love almond flavoring, so this hit the mark for me. It's kind of a mix between chocolate ganache and chocolate buttercream with a dash of almond. Definitely a keeper.

So I combined these two recipes into this birthday cake for a friend. Yes, I gave it away, and didn't eat it all (lucky for my baby I just tasted the cut off cake top with some icing for critique purposes :)

Then I whipped up a batch of marshmallow fondant to make my colorful flowers (recipe at end of post). I mixed in some gumtex with it to make it more of a gumpaste so my flowers would harden a little more).

These flowers were simple to make. I just used the medium flower cutter from my Wilton fondant rose cutters set (although another flower cutter would work just as well I presume). Just roll out your fondant/gumtex mixture, cut the flowers out (and use a knife to cut into them a little more so the petals will separate a bit more), and dry them in some tinfoil molded into a cup shape. I used my large lily nail to press my foil part way down to make the cup shape. Allow to dry (give a couple days at least--I only did one day and mine didn't harden as much as I wish they had--maybe I should have used more gumtex too). Rolled up balls of fondant can be glued in the center of the flowers with a little clear vanilla extract.


Just put the flowers where you like for a beautiful finished cake. Yum. Did I mention I love chocolate? Only 9 more months until I can really eat it again . . . but who's counting?
(I recommend checking out that book Chocolate Never Faileth. Unfortunately due to copywrite I can't reproduce the recipes here for you).

Marshmallow fondant

1 package (16 ounces) Kraft white mini marshmallows
2-5 Tbsp water
2 pounds (about 8 cups) sifted confectioners' sugar
1 tsp clear flavorings (vanilla, butter, almond) optional

Melt the marshmallows and 2T water in a greased microwavable bowl in 30 sec increments, stirring between until mixture is melted. At this point you can add in your flavoring if you want.

Place 1/2 of your powdered sugar in a pregreased Kitchenaid with greased dough hook attached. Pour marshmallow mixture over top (and scrap out all using a spatula). Knead fondant on medium speed. Continue adding powdered sugar in 1/2 cup increments until fondant is not sticky. By the end I usually have to knead a little bit more sugar in by hand on a well-greased surface. The amount of powdered sugar you need may vary depending on the humidity of where you live.

It should be done when it is pliable and non-sticky. I like to wrap mine in a couple of layers of saran wrap and let it rest for a couple of hours before using it. It can be stored for at least a month if coated with a thin layer of crisco, wrapped tight in plastic wrap, sealed in a ziploc bag, and stored in an airtight container.

About the Author

Author info. Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these with your own descriptions, if you like it Subscribe to Our Feed and Follow Me on Twitter

    Other Recommended Posts

0 comments:

Post a Comment

 
back to top //PART 2