October 2013: This project was one of those that continued to morph well beyond my initial plan, even as I was putting it all together the last day. I knew I wanted a gum ball tree with a swing, and I knew I wanted a chocolate waterfall that created a chocolate lake. The mountain and tree are molded from Rice-Krispies Treats mixture. Once it hardened, I covered everything in fondant. Originally, my plan was to create the colorful walking path and intersperse the individual cupcakes on the white areas. But then….I decided that I didn’t want just the white background for my cupcakes, so I thought I would find a way to make the base green, like grass. I decided on crushed up green candies, but since I had to buy bags of multicolored candies, my idea morphed into a much more psychedelic experience than I had planned.Here’s a not so great photo of my all edible Candyland. I had a hard time trying to get the best angle to capture it all.All of the candies & treats on the cupcakes are made of fondant.I decided to add a mermaid diving into the chocolate lake. Her tail is adorned with slivers of jellybeans, and the splash is made of hardened chocolate.The chocolate bars are made of fondant and stamped with my daughter’s initials. I did re-use a Ghirardelli chocolate bar wrapper to wrap my fake bars.The gum balls are real gum balls. Originally, I was going to make all of the gum balls out of fondant, but I decided that real gum balls would be way more visually appealing and exciting. I also had planned to make a fondant person sitting on the swing, but my daughter thought it would better if we used the playing pieces from the Candyland game to really hammer the theme home.
December 2012: My daughter wanted Ariel cupcakes, but as before, I knew I didn’t want to make 12 of the same thing, so the theme became Ariel & Friends. Here’s a shot from the morning of the party as I am assembling each mermaid on her cupcake.All the mermaids, each with their individual scene. Only the birthday girl got Ariel, Flounder and Sebastian
October 2011: My daughter was obsessed with American Girl dolls this year (her 8th birthday) so instead of trying to create teeny tiny dolls out of fondant (which is what she originally wanted), I decided to try making my first fondant covered cake.Here’s the cake surrounded by actual American Girl gift boxes. I also decided to make a few fun cupcakes, as I had just taken a wonderful class called Flowers & Frills at Baking Arts
October 2012: This year, the obsession was hula hooping and jump roping. It took a while, but I decided to make one girl per cupcake, and have all of them doing tricks with their hula hoops and jump ropes– sometimes interacting together.This girl is the one leaping in the air while two other girls spin the rope around her.Assembling all the girls and their ropes the day of the party.Not sure why I decided that this girl would be sitting down while holding on to one end of a jumprope.One of my hula hoopers. I put toothpicks in each fondant arm in order to support the hoops.Another jump rope holderThis girl would be in mid-air while doing a rope cross.My redhead now on her cupcake and holding her end of the rope.I made the hula hoops months in advance to ensure they would be dried out enough to stay put while hanging on the girls’ arms or around their waists.This hula hoop matched one my daughter had at the time.I dipped the string in fabric stiffener to make the jump ropes airborne.All of the fondant characters in actionDouble armed fondant hula-hooper
December 2010: A year later, my daughter was still obsessed with Sesame Street and actually wanted Ernie AND Bert cupcakes. I thought a lot about how to do this, and then somehow was struck with the idea of putting just Ernie in the bath. It became another creative challenge to put them all in different positions, some with bars of soap or scrub brushes but all would be relaxing and of course, with rubber ducky in tow. The sugar duckies I bought from my go-to supply store, Sugar ‘N Spice. I quickly realized that since I was covering Ernie with “suds”, I didn’t actually need to make full bodies. Most of the cupcakes are just Ernie heads, arms and legs.Here are all the happy fondant Ernie’s relaxing in their cupcake tubs.
October 2010: This one was difficult. My daughter wanted a Tinkerbell cake, so I decided that I would make Tinkerbell out of fondant and have her fly over the cake. Of course. The cake itself is the “grass” underneath the castle. The castle is made from styrofoam pieces that I cut and stuck together and then covered with fondant then decorated. Getting Tinkerbell to fly was the hardest part. My idea was to suspend her over the cake on fishing wire, attached to a strong wire which would be bent just so. But Tinkerbell was too heavy for the styrofoam and fondant base I made, so I had to reinforce everything with more wire at the last second which I thought ruined the whole aesthetic. In the end, Tinkerbell did indeed fly/spin over the cake, and my 6yr old thought it was magically perfect.
December 2009: This was my second attempt at playing with fondant, and unfortunately, I only have this one picture. Once I decided to do 12 Grovers, I knew I had to make them all in different positions. My daughter’s favorite was the “U”.
