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How to Cover a Square Cake in Fondant

Now what we're going to do in this segment to start off with this, we're going to do a square cake and a square k I had everybody do around cake to start with because around is easy, the squares are more difficult. Have you all seen that cake that's been decorated like a box like a gift box? The reason they came up with those is because somebody didn't know how to cover their square funding cake, so I I'm not going to show you how to create a box because you already can do that. I'm going to show you how to create a square cake that's done right? So what I've done is I've buttercream dice my square cake, I trimmed it and feel that just like we did the round cakes, except now we're going to do it on the square and we're going to start with guess what, meeting funding because bond, it needs to be needed. And he said that it's because of the instructor but I have to tell you, fund in't is really very easy, it's I've taught it to girl scout troops. I have a nine year old granddaughter that...

I've taught it to, and she does gum paste flowers so it's easy, we can all do it. Okay just need to know the tricks of what works and what doesn't work I am not going to need this entire block of funding because one I don't need that much teo I like my shoulders and I'm going to use the step that I've already worked because it's already worked and soft and I don't need to reinvent the wheel every time. So with that being said let's start the fun process here in a lot of ways font it's kind of like working with play doh to think yeah so if you were created with your play dough you can be creative with your fund int and they sell lots and lots of tools or toys I always refer to miss toys for doing your funding or lace molds were part of that they also have specialty cutters and they have specialty mats and they have they have they have you know you can buy until the cows come home now one of the things that I haven't done is I haven't measured my cake yet as I'm standing here I'm thinking I'm gonna have to measure my cake to know how big I'm rolling my fondant but right now I just want to get warmed up we're keeping the studio nice and cool because we have the modeling chocolate and it's been really warm in the seattle area the last few days so chocolate doesn't like warm it like school so my poor camera guys are all bundled up, but I'm not complaining about warm because we don't get it very often here, right every now and then I feel a little piece of sugar come off of that and if you'll notice when I feel that I kind of brush it off and then I get it out of my work area so you don't want to do this on a carpeted floor because guess what there will be clean up later now if you're using a oh premade fondant store bought fonda and as they say, um you probably don't run into those sort of things because they have better sifters and I have but mind tastes better no prejudice there did we have any questions while I'm eating while we're watching paint dry? This is a fun party a company officials wanted to know is hot glue considered a food safe hot glue is considered food safe although it's not encouraged I mean okay, you know, if you put it on your board, I wouldn't be hot glowing your flowers onto things you want to know what else is food safe and you can use superglue really super glue was created to be used as a surgical glue for internal to be used internally, so if you put it on your if you have two super glue something you're ok? Yes we were talking earlier when we're putting the colorado cake about if we had a tear how to fix it and khun to reinforce that again because I didn't catch all the details well, any time you have a tear or fold or ah spot fund it's not very forgiving it's not going to fix easily and if you're doing something like covering your board you're almost better off turn it off and starting over um one of the ways to avoid tears is making a little thicker and one of the other things I don't know if you heard me say it or not but if if you're covering a larger cake like a wedding size cake so you've got something that's sixteen or eighteen or fourteen inches it's easier to wrap it around than on an eight or smaller cake because your curve is not as saying I can have the tearing on a larger cake that's fine day I like the questions I've been doing this a long time I kind of forget that you know there's some things you may not know about when you were one of questions from earlier is when you put the stocking on your fund and smoother yes is it just a single or two or three it's just a single and I tie it on really tight um I'm isn't rachel rachel I'm sorry I'm horrible with names I barely remember my own most days that was one of the problems rachel was having a set her fund and smoother she had the stocking on but it wasn't tied it was just kind of flopping around yeah yeah yeah cool it really does make a difference and you could do the same thing with the a chunk of ah block of cold butter if you don't have it funded smoother just tie on a stocking onto a piece of you know a repped cold chunk of butter and use that it works bring years ago when we first learned how to do this um I want to say this nineteen about nineteen eighty three maybe nineteen eighty four we brought in a lady from australia mari granger and we had her teach us how to do rolled fondant and gum paste flowers it was just like what is thiss wow how do they do that we'd always been buttercream and we had um this course with her and she showed us how to make the fund and she showed us how to make the gum paste and we did you know the flowers and all that and it was unheard of I mean was absolutely unheard of nobody knew about it in the states I remember fondant I'd tried and try and try to get people they do find that they wouldn't let me I started sneaking onto kicks I snuck it onto cakes in order to use the fund it and I remember the day I had this couple shore up on my doorstep and they had a piece of fondant on it on a napkin in their hands and they said did you do this? And I'm thinking, oh, I'm going to get sued and I stood there and I thought for a few seconds I thought do I not doing not kate claim to this or do I go and I thought just face it gearing and get sued and I said yes, I did it and they said, well, you do our wedding cake on I thought yeah, I get to charge for funding now everybody's doing fund it they love it it's fun to work with justin I don't want to say it doesn't take skill but it doesn't it's a different type of skill than what we've been used to and now here's the funny part I still need to need this sorry here's the funny part is that now the butter creams coming back and now we're getting more and more people that are saying to me when they're ordering their wedding cakes and things I don't want any funded on it we want butter cream can you do it well yeah uh huh but I like working with the funding hey, so charlie would like to know could you readdress the vodka repair that you did okay so she had a little tear on there you can also use a little bit of water but the vodka works a little better because it adds and moisture doesn't add any flavor to it and the alcohol evaporates very quickly so it doesn't melt your sugar just enough sticky tio make it work and then we move on and then it did drive pretty fast didn't it? Yeah, the trick is is given a moment or two to dry otherwise it's going to end up you're going to end up going over with your smoother and getting it stuck and ripping and tearing it again so if it's a minor little tear that's one way to fix it is with a little vodka your vodka will also work to attach other pieces of funding to it um you can also use let's um vanilla extract lemon extract works well too although the lemon extract has a little more oil in it so it doesn't doesn't evaporate as quickly and then I always have an issue with the fact that that your adding that lemon extract that's a very strong intense flavor whereas if you're using vanilla that's a little more and its base note it's used in almost everything and baking and it blends in well any any alcohol that's clear but vodka is nice because it doesn't have much of a flavor usually I love using vodka in my pipe presto presto yep that's another really, really nice so you see can you guys see that? I still need to need this. It's got little things that if I need it, it will go away. Needs to be needed. Okay. Hi, kristie. Yes? Yeah, another question. Shelly would like to know. How do you know how much funded to begin with? That's? A very good question. And there are charts out there that have to do with how much pounds to use per per tear. But generally speaking, as a rule of thumb, you want to hear about two pounds of funding for an eight inch cake, and then the larger the cake, the more fun that you want to add and that's why these cakes are heavy, because if you consider that you've got a little kick, you just added about two pounds, probably more like a pound and a half by the time you get done and you have to have extra so it goes over the edge and you contribute. So when you're covering cakes, especially wedding cakes, you always start with the largest one first and work down to the smallest so that you have enough funding. Don't start with the smallest and work up. Thank you know, practice on the little and getting it doesn't work that way cool and chance, we would like to know have a little bit of an issue. When I put my cake in the fridge, it seems to get dry because the fund it was falling. How do you keep the cake from getting dry or should I put it in the fridge? Her cake got dry in the fridge. Um, she I would have thought it would have sweated being in the fridge, but ok, so got dry. So what you probably want to do is give it a little scored with some simple syrup. Um, and I just use a little a little spray bottle with simple syrup. You want to make your simple syrup with, say, two cups of water to one cup of sugar there's no exact science to it. You can do whatever you would like, um, and you want to boil that, and because you've boiled it, it is not going to grow any bacteria. It'll be fine. Sitting around you can also add you can add a little flavor to your simple syrup, like grand marnie a or bailey's or yeah, I'm like that. Spray that right on the cake and man put on the icing and then spread again. That's yummy combination! One of my best selling cakes is actually chocolate cake with bailey's feeling that's my number one seller, yeah and then it's chocolate cake with creamed raspberry filling and then it's orange cake with chocolate ganache feeling, is there a way to add flavor to the fund and after it's on the cake? Um, well, you could spray it with, uh, they actually have a sprained flavor that you can spray on two cakes, and I can't even tell you where to get it or how effective it is. I just know it is I'm looking for my poking tool that I know I have here some place there it is, I see something I see a foes, um, but pretty much once it's on the cake here you're you should have already had it flavored add the flavoring while you're mixing it. Well, at this point, if I wanted to add some more flavor, she could I would avoid using, um like the extracts, I would use more of an oil at this point because any moisture that you add is going to change the consistency and make it softer, which softer? It sounds like yes, if it's what you want but know you actually want your funding as firm as you can get it, because then you're going to have a better, better result you don't want a cracking firm, right? So there's a balance there, not too soft, not too firm, just it's kind of like go right to you like maybe a ten or fifteen minutes sort of a thing you can typically depending on the temperature in your kitchen right in again if it's warm it's not going to take us long if it's cooler going to take a little longer so I know he said that you make your own funding how long does it usually keep for or do you just make enough for whatever cake you're making? Um no, you could make it months ahead of time. You do need to wrap it up as airtight as possible and when I say air tight wrap it into like plastic airtight getting air tight and then put it into like a bucket or temporary container that's airtight the more air tight you can keep it the better off it will be um that's your that's your enemy is drying out due to exposure um but yeah, you could make it months ahead of time because it's sure it's lots of lots of sugar. Okay, now this one I'm going to go ahead and start rolling out and if you'll notice I pressed it into a kind of a square shape because I want to roll it out in the shape of my cake so if I'm doing a heart shaped cake I want to roll it out in this close to a heart shape as I can get it the closer I get it to the shape the um the easier it's going to be a man o and I want to measure my cake remember I said that and I forgot I didn't forget I just haven't done it okay so this one's about three inches tall and it's eight inches across which means we're eleven and then back down which means I'm at fifteen inches which means I'm going to roll it seventeen right I'm adding two inches and this is true if I'm doing a eight inch cake if I'm doing at eighteen inch cake and I keep using eighteen is kind of a big number because that's about the maximum most people's ovens can hold about the largest pans you can find you can get him larger but truthfully there's no reason to I shouldn't say there's no reason to they're just not used all that often and again I want to go from the center out I want to roll out those corners so I'm keeping that square shape if I were doing a heart shaped pancake it would be a heart shape I might have to take a nap after I'm done with it hard work here aa lot of times when I'm doing wedding cakes that are covered in fondant I do one day of just fondant and then I go to bed and rest they really are a lot of physical if energy are a lot of physical work but look at the beautiful surface you get when you're done and all the fun things you can create on it so uh raise angel finds that their funding gets cracked as it drives or looks kind of the leathery what am I doing wrong? It's probably a little too dry and they need to add try adding some shortening on your hands and your work surface when you're needing it work in just a little bit shorting a little bit of shortening now here's what I'm going to say about shortening and funded as well a short in a gum paste think of it as taking a bubble bath and drinking a glass of wine a little shortenings little relaxing in your bubble back drinks too much wine we're gonna fall under and around so a little too relaxed with too much shortening okay but it sounds like you're funding is a little bit dry on this to start with and needs a little bit of short you worked into your welcome that helped they think maybe ok that's got a nice feel to it on thickness let's see where we're at on size I know him a little long that's because that's easy direction I met sixteen there seventeen you see a pattern here didn't I do the exact same thing before let's get this corners out there and as I'm working I'm looking for things so I've got another fuzz that showed up when I teach in the culinary schools, you can literally tell by looking at students fondant who owns a dog who has a cat if your air conditioner another trick about drying your funding out as if they're working to close to there air conditioning unit if they have an air conditioning unit that will dry out fondant I want to get this corner out here just a little bit more smooth it up and I think we're ready okay? And I'm not seeing I am really looking for any issues that I can take care of now oh like that foes good this second time I've run into more issues that's good and you get to see it doesn't always go perfectly smooth let's remove our back see how the rules have changed for the square and opposed to the round they didn't change if they're the singing okay let's polish this is see if I can see any air bubbles get down I see in your probable so right here it's probably not going to be an issue but I want to pop it now just in case it is come in at the angle let the air out smooth it back out you guys see how awesome this looks yeah it's like it's like a k listen bottom k lis the granddaughter she doesn't let me touch your bottom, so don't worry I tried to ice my cake a square as possible aiken standing here looking at it going yeah good job lined it up bring it down I'm a little short on this side so I'm going to go ahead and remove it this way roll this at one point I had a bakery that I had a little railing and I loved that little raving cause I'd pull it off and then just draped these over I didn't have to stand and roll upholstery plastic but trust me, take the moment to do it because if you get a fold or wrinkle in this then you're out buying more and these will work over and over and over ok let's get our smoother I want to lift up one side so in case I have any air bubbles I can kind of move him out, get it nice and smooth on the top now then here's where you run into the issues with the square is that people want to go straight down straight down and then you end up with corners one person or several people solution years you take that corner, you folded in, you've got a box I have seen people take those corners, take a scissor and cut it and then try to smooth it if you do it right, you don't have to do any of that so let's start with tuck it down as we pull out just like we did on our round cakes check it in as we pull it out of resist that urge to go straight you really want to just kind of caresses it move it and you can do this without turning it into a tablecloth or a hat you could you I heard laughter you know what I'm talking about that's why we also have the hat cakes because everybody would covering their fund and got the hat look not the so if you'll notice look at that was that hard no pull it out as utah knock it down okay reserves set urge to go straight down just resisted fight that urge I want to bring in my smoother get it checked in dueling smooth oh okay let's trim out on the edge because it's going to be pull up and shrink it always does hasn't disappointed me yet look at that my cake moved on the board okay, move it back round out the corners I've got one corner here that wants to have an issue no issues my favorite line that my husband I use is chef I'm having issues when you teach culinary students you often hear yeah I'm having issues it's okay well it's only cake it's only cage remain calm ok, I've got that looking pretty darn good let's go ahead and trim it a little closer now, when I'm doing a square cake, I do want to cover the board first. It's easier than trying to make it all look seamless and without cracks. But I just today wanted to show you how to do a square cake without issues doing I do not try to get perfectly square edges on a square cake. Unless I'm doing a box, then I go for square edges. But I wanted this to just be a square covered fonda cake. I want to make sure it straight on my board who had just tucked in my sleep. Smoother time headed, almost perfect. Okay, that, uh, any questions? Oh, come on, there's. Got to be a question. So we don a got a question. If you were covering a paisley shaped cake, how difficult is it? Especially on the pointed end? A little more difficult, but I would treat that pointed in just kind of like I did the square portion of it work that way. The trick to doing these in any shape is start by going only an inch down and then work a little further down and a little further down and just kind of work. And as you're working down, pull out, and that will help you get rid of those folds, those creases, that weird stuff.