Le fondant - The icing

How to make super shiny fondant on puff pastries

Do you know what 'fondant' is ? It is the little shiny sugar icing on eclairs -these puff pastries filled with cream- that can have different colors: brown for coffee eclairs, white for vanilla eclairs... Usually professionnal pastry chefs buy fondant all done, ready in a box to heat up. But if you want to make beautiful eclairs at home, it is a pain to find out where to buy it so there is the recipe to shine up these delicious pastries and make them look like beautiful-enough-to sell eclairs.

Step 1

Put 300g/0.661lbs of white sugar in a pan and add 80g/0.176lbs of water. Mix gently with a spoon when it's cold

 

Step 2

Bring it to boil on medium heat (make sure the sides of the pan are clean not to darken your sirup) until it reaches 114°C/237°F. Never stir

Step 3

Then then put your pan on a salad bowl full of cold water and make the syrup cool down to 75°C/167°F (it's now to color it if you want so). The sirup gets thicker and sticky

 

Step 4

Put the sirup in a food processor and mix it to medium speed until it gets white and hard (it takes approx 5-10 minutes)

 

Step 5

Press it with your hand to make a ball and keep it in the refrigerator up to one year (in an airtight box)

To use it, you'll just have to gently heat them to 34°C/93°F

The Dolphin cake

My little girl turned 4 last December and she is very much into dolphins at the moment. So, she asked me to imagine a dolphin cake for her to bring to school.
I first thought about making a cake shaped like a dolphin but flat but then, it wasn't that impressive. I wanted her to be breathless when discovering her cake. So, I decided to make one with figurines.

I first baked a round cake with pears.

Then, I made fondant by mixing margarine, marshmallows and powdered sugar plus food coloring.

And I shaped a dolphin, a little killer whale and some little underwater figurines as well.

Here is the result: