Fondant.  As I get more into cakes, I look around at stores and recipes for the different types that are available. For a lot of my cakes, it’s easy enough to go to the store and buy it.  There are so many different brands available: Wilton, Cake Boss, and Duff all have different fondant types.  Believe it or not, they all taste a bit different.  Newer brands are emerging in the stores too.  I am always interested in how each brand tastes, and for my personal tastes, some definitely taste better than others.  One brand, recently revamped their recipe and made it taste a lot better.  Other flavors taste better when it’s a white color, instead of a darker color. Each company has their own recipe.

Fondant is so easy and cost friendly to make, unlike the product in the store, which can easily cost $10.00 a pound. Buying it in a store or online is useful sometimes, like when you want a bold or dark color. Black for instance. It’s harder to make those colors because it takes more dye to color the fondant when you make it yourself.

Sometimes, it’s just better to make it on your own.

Marshmallow fondant is very simple to put together. It’s only a few ingredients: marshmallows, confectioner’s sugar, shortening or butter, water, and any flavoring you might want to add. Most of these ingredients, I usually have on hand. If I don’t, I can walk to the supermarket and buy it. The ingredients individually are not very expensive. You might pay $7 for shortening, marshmallows, and powdered sugar.

I remember the first time I made marshmallow fondant, I didn’t really like the taste of it. My family said that it tasted a lot better than the store bought fondant. So I wanted to try it again, and this cake was a great time to do so. It was simple to make, Melt the marshmallows, add the powered sugar and kneed. I decided this time around to add some vanilla flavoring to the fondant. Once it was made, I tasted a small piece and I think the Vanilla made a big difference. There are many variations to fondant, and any type of flavoring can be added to it. It was a great experiment.

Fondant: Homemade Marshmallow

Happy new year! (Better late than never 🙂 )

It’s been a while, but new cakes have been uploaded.  Check them out!

The Treehouse has received it’s first official order.  It was simple cake, which was fortunate, because there was only a 2 day turn around time.  The order was for a chocolate cake, with chocolate frosting and “Happy Birthday Dan” written on it.  I used my Grandmom’s Chocolate Cake recipe and a dairy-free chocolate buttercream, since I knew the cake was going to sit in my office for the day before it could go home with the birthday boy.  The guy who ordered it is a co-worker of mine and I buy veggies from him that he grows in his farm.  So I decided that, while not requested, I would add some decorations, a bit of a personal touch.  The veggies are made out of fondant and he really loved them.

The Treehouse Cakery is on Twitter! Follow us @TreehouseCakery .