fondant fancies

I can’t believe that next week is the final of the Great British Bake Off, this year has gone in such a hurry.
This week we saw savoury Palmiers for the signature bake, a Savarin for the technical bake and Fondant Fancies for the Showstopper.

Andrew did really well this week saving himself from final elimination as it was Selasi that was shown the door with just one week to go.

I have made Palmiers before and I don’t have a tin to bake a traditional Savarin, although I do have something similar, I guess I didn’t fancy it.

The kids had already decided for me anyway, they wanted to make Fondant Fancies.

Of course, my kids like their cakes pretty plain so when we were coming up for ideas for their cakes they wanted chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream and icing. So, forgive me these are not the most exciting or fancifal Fancies.

Also, I really can’t get on with watering down fondant. I still have nightmares from when I had to do it when I made the Mokatines from last years Bake Off. This time I messed up when the icing was just not runny enough to cover the cakes, so I watered it down a little more and then it was too runny.

Maybe if I’d been decorating them myself I would have been more patient, but it was not good when the kids were all keen to do it but have the patience of a flea. It was really mess too. I think there was more Icing on the greaseproof paper than on the cakes themselves. I tried to scoop it up for a second coating but the kids were pretty quick at scooping it up into their mouths.

messy cakes

The cakes were tasty enough, but I wasn’t happy with the decoration.

Fondant Fancies

Ingredients:

300g self-raising flour

325g soft butter

325g caster sugar

25g cocoa powder

4 eggs

buttercream

100g soft butter

200g icing sugar

10g cocoa powder

Fondant

500g fondant icing

75g water

drops of food colouring of choice.

Method:

preheat oven to 170C/gas mark 4

grease and line two 7″ square tins

cream together butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl

add eggs and beat in one at a time

sift in flour and cocoa powder and fold the mixture together

pour evenly into tins and bake for 30 mins until a skewer comes out clean

cool the cut into equal cubes (9 per tin)

Make the buttercream by creaming together the icing sugar, cocoa powder and butter

coat four sides of the cakes but not the top and bottom

put the remaining buttercream into a piping bag and pipe a shell on the top of each cake

Chill in the fridge for at least 1/2 hour

Make the fondant by mixing the icing with water and food colouring.

We split our icing into three and made one white, one blue and one orange.

put the cakes on a cooling rack over a sheet of greaseproof paper

pour the fondant over the cakes from the top and allow to drip over the sides.

Another method I’ve heard of is to put a fork into the bottom of each cake and dip them into the fondant icing, covering all sides, then leave them to drip on cooling rack.

Do not do as I did and make the fondant to runny.

Here are our finished Fancies.

As you can see from this next photo, I also could have spent a little more time mixing the fondant with the water and there were some lumps present.
Next week, I’m going to attempt a bake without the help of the kids.