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Hello and welcome to Cupcake Addiction's Fondant Leaf Tutorial.
Today we will be learning how to make a few different types of leaves out of fondant.
Some tools and equipment that we will be using: I have over here a series of cutters. I have
a simple set of rose cutters. One side is used to make your rose petals and the other
side is serrated, used to make rose leaves. I also have just a plain scone cutter. And
I'm using some plunger cutters today. I love plunger cutters because they are already veined,
so you can cut and vein your leaf in one swift movement. However, I understand, not everybody
will have this at home. I have today a petal veiner. This one is a
poppy veiner but any standard petal veiner will do if you have one.
I have here my plastic fondant roller. A paring knife.
I have a cappuccino chocolate shaker filled with cornflour.
Some leaf green color paste. And some Tylose powder available from a lot
of cake decorating shops. I'm also using fondant today obviously.
So let's get started. This is the fondant as it comes cut off the
[block]. As you can see, it's got a little bit of air bubbles in there. We want to knead
that fondant for approximately a minute just to get rid of those air bubbles and give it
a nice smooth consistency. And then we can add just a dab of the leaf green coloring
to get the color that you desire. I would just add the coloring, just a small
amount at a time because you don't want to over-color. You can always add more but you
can't take it out. Now when you're coloring your fondant -- something
to remember -- you want to get a nice consistency. As you can see there, you cans see different
shades of color in the middle of that fondant. That's not what you're looking for.
With fondant, you want to make sure that you've kneaded the color in enough that the color
is smooth and consistent all the way through. So you see with my fondant here, when I cut
it in half... beautiful. You can't see any changes of color. It's all exactly the same
color. Now Tylose, as I've mentioned earlier, this
lovely white powder. Tylose is a powder that you add to fondant to help it to set a lot
faster than one of otherwise would. You just want to knead that through the fondant. You
want to make sure that you've kneaded it all the way through so you've got a good consistency
of it. Roll that fondant into a nice ball.
With Tylose, it's about a golf ball-sized piece of fondant to one pinch of Tylose.
Now, the first thing you want to do when you're working with fondant is you want to prepare
your surface with a little bit of cornflour. With cornflour, you do want to remember, it's
a sprinkle and not a snow. So you want to have enough to sort of coat the service, but
you don't want to have so much that it's going to go everywhere and end up covering all of
your lovely fondant colors. I'm going to place my ball in the center and
I'm going to take my fondant roller. If you don't have a fondant roller, you can use just
a standard wooden rolling pin. If you're going to do that, I will probably just take just
a little bit of that cornflour, just popping it on the top of that fondant there to stop
the wooden rolling pin from sticking. With fondant, you'll notice that I just moved,
turn it around. You want to keep that fondant moving so that it doesn't stick through the
surface and so you get a nice even thickness. You can see this fondant, it's about a millimeter
thick, maybe two there. Alright, that's the thickness that I'm going to start with today.
You can roll a little bit thinner if you like but this is an easy thickness to start with.
I should have also mentioned in my tools and equipment, I have here a sliced off piece
of an apple tray which I've done a bit of an exchange for with my local fruit shop.
These are fantastic for drying anything fondant, fondant flowers, fondant leaves, just to give
them a little bit of (Inaudible 04:02) I supposed you call it.
Now to begin with, I'm going to use my rose cutters. As I've mentioned, you've got one
side that's smooth and one side that's serrated, so depending on the style of leaf you like.
I'm going to go with the serrated edge. I'm going to push that in. I just move it
back to forth. That is... just feel that it's stock to the bottom a little bit so I'm going
to get my paring knife under there. And I'm just going to ease that off.
Alright, from there, I'm going to take my poppy petal veiner. I'm going to pop it in
there. And just give it a moderate amount of pressure. Okay. So you will see, now we
have a lovely veined leaf. For that leaf, I'm going to pop it over here
in my apple tray. My leaf, as you see, is not completely flat so you just want to kink
that top over. There's no real method to it. You just make it so that there's a little
bit of a curve, a little bit of a wave. That's our leaf using the rose cutter.
Out of that same rolled out piece of fondant, I'm going to show you how to make it with
a scone cutter. Scone cutters are a little bit more commonly available in the home and
you're more likely to have them. If you're not an avid cake decorator so I thought this
will be a good way to show you how to make a leaf with just things that you have around
the home. You'll see that I've cut a lovely round circle.
I'm just going to come across to that circle and just cut out a little bit of a leaf shape.
So there you have almost a moon and then a little leaf. I'm going to take the back of
my paring knife and I'm just going to make some leaf indentations there. Alright, this
is a very simple leaf but it's still going to be just effective in your cupcake. We're
going to dry that once again just over there, a little bit of a curve on the leaf. That's
a nice easy one you can make at home. Finally I'm going to show you how to use one
of these plunger cutters. I'm going to choose this particular leaf. Basically, the plunger
cutter I find to be absolutely easiest if you're going to make a lot of leaves. I would
absolutely suggest investing some of these. I think this one's are a thicker brand.
Once again, I've put it into the fondant. I'm just going to rub it back and forth a
little bit just to separate it from the board. And then I'm going to plunge, lift and pop.
How easy is that? Love the plunger cutters! Once again with that leaf, we're going to
dry that over here. There you have 3 different types of leaves.
And over here are some that we made earlier. So that's what you're looking at, for 3 easy
fondant leaves.