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Today we're going to talk about the basics of working with fondant icing.
I have a small amount here that I'm going to use for the demonstration.
Start with a clean dry surface.
Also make sure you've removed all your jewellery, washed your hands and dried them really well.
Start by dusting your work surface with a small amount of icing sugar.
Make sure it's pure icing sugar, or confectioner's sugar as it's sold in the States.
I like to use a tea strainer because it gives me much more control about where I'm putting it.
Roll it out, rotating every couple of rolls.
The reason for this is to stop it sticking to the mat.
Pick up your fondant cutter. Just dip it in the icing sugar and give it a little wiggle.
Tap it out to remove the excess.
Press firmly into the icing. Give it a little wiggle to remove.
I'm using the [rounded] end of a skewer to push it out because I think it does less damage to the letters.
I started out by using toothpicks and found it to be ineffective.
So there's our first letter.
Now, brush the excess icing sugar off the top
And you can see there's some indentation in the top of this
so to remove that we're going to polish it gently with a piece of acetate sheeting
just to smooth it out a little bit.
So you can see that that now gives a nice smooth finish.
And, in true tv style, "Here's one I prepared earlier"
So you can use that and you can now put these letters straight onto your cake.