A lot of people tell me that they can’t bake or aren’t creative with their baking at all and I tell them that all you need are some gel colours and some fondant and you can transform even the simplest vanilla cupcake or basic butter cake into something quiet special.

Fondant is great to work with, is quite pliable and can be made into just about anything you imagine.

You can roll it out, form it into things, paint on it and cut out shapes to keep in an airtight container for weeks. Covering a cake with fondant gives you a great blank canvas to work with and keeps the cake inside moist.

Here are a few tips to help get you started with fondant:

1. When covering a cake with fondant, make sure that you have crumbed coated the cake first with butter cream or ganache so it seals in the moisture – otherwise any crumbs or imperfections will show through
2. Place cake on a sturdy cake board
3. Dust your work bench with cornflour and roll out the fondant, rotating it a few times to make sure it doesn’t stick to the bench. Roll out to about ¼ inch using a silicone rolling pin
4. Work quickly as it does dry out and make sure that any unused fondant is placed in an airtight container
5. Place rolled fondant over cake and smooth out with the palm of your hand and a cake smoother
6. Trim excess fondant from the base and place in a zip lock bag or airtight container
7. If you get any cracks or small holes just use a little vegetable shortening to smooth and repair
8. Standard cakes covered in fondant will last 2-3 days before cutting. Do NOT store in the fridge
9. Make any fondant decorations to be placed on cake a few days before to allow them enough time to harden
10. Cake edge can be fancied up a bit with ribbon, some fondant shapes or tiny balls or even M&m’s
11. Once cake is cut it can be stored in the fridge to keep it fresher

A few tips on colouring fondant and making shapes:

1. Fondant is a little like modelling clay, it needs to be kneaded until it’s soft and easily pliable
2. If fondant is a little hard, grease your hands with a little butter to soften it
3. Use food colour gels to colour your fondant, just add a few drops to the middle of your ball of fondant and knead until it’s all incorporated. Use gloves to prevent rainbow hands
4. To roll out your fondant for shapes, it’s easier if you use a non stick baking paper dusted with some cornflour or icing sugar
5. As you roll out your fondant, keep turning it and making sure it’s well dusted so as to prevent it sticking
6. You can marble the fondant by taking two different coloured long sausage shapes of fondant and plait together then knead a little to get the colours marbled and roll out
7. Cookie cutters can be used to make shapes, any shapes you can imagine, from hearts and stars to aeroplanes and cars, to little people. Just treat it as you would modelling clay or plasticine and create bodies from round balls and faces with food colour pens
8. A few tools to have in your box of tricks are various size cutters, letter and number cutters, ruler, fondant smoother, modelling tools, rolling pin, embosser/cutter tool, scissors, skewers/toothpicks for frilling flowers or butterfly wings, coloured gels and food colour pens

I hope this inspires you to have a go; it really is all up to your imagination what you create.

Most of all have fun doing it and if you have any questions or suggestions we’d love to hear them. Cake decorating supplies from Cake Emporium, my.dream.cake, Penrith Valley Cake Supplies