Fondant ‘Fancy That’!
About this build
Square chocolate sponges and a cake dome are assembled with buttercream, coated in chocolate fondant and displayed in a folded paper case.
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What the original account establishes
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- Estimated cost £9.88 and 28 hours including 8 of sleep. The ingredients were 500g butter, 600g caster sugar, 4 free range eggs, 550g plain flour, 200g cocoa, 1kg icing sugar, 100g dark chocolate, 1 pint of milk and greaseproof paper for the case. A 15cm buttercream dome was judged too difficult, so a balti dish of almost the right proportions made the dome, with a 20cm square tin for the layers; four square chocolate sponges and a balti cake were baked from creamed butter and sugar, eggs, and folded flour and cocoa, with no oven figures given. A chocolate buttercream of icing sugar, butter and cocoa sandwiched the layers and cemented the dome, with extra on the sides. Two lots of chocolate fondant icing from icing sugar, cocoa and water ran down the kitchen units and over hands, face, the cat and a child; the cake was moved onto its board with 2 spatulas, a greaseproof paper case was concertinaed with some scale problems, and dark chocolate was piped at the pro rata widths. Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3 · Source 4 · Source 5 · Source 6 · Source 7 · Source 8
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Ingredients 500g butter 600g Caster sugar 4 free range eggs 550g plain flour 200g cocoa 1kg icing sugar 100g dark chocolate 1 pint milk greaseproof paper for paper case
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The original account
Estimated cost: £9.88
Time taken: 28 hours (includes sleeping time 8 hours)
Ingredients
500g butter
600g Caster sugar
4 free range eggs
550g plain flour
200g cocoa
1kg icing sugar
100g dark chocolate
1 pint milk
greaseproof paper for paper case
Cleaning products and other specialist equipment- if you run into problems later on (see below)
1-2 kitchen rolls
2 kitchen super absorbent yellow cellulose sponge cloths
1 bucket of hot soapy water
2 flat spatula thingies
A child to lick chocolate icing off work surfaces
Having tried making a giant pink fancy a few years back, I decided upon attempting the least popular of the Mr Kipling’s trio- the chocolate one. I think its low popularity is probably due to the poor quality chocolatey taste and a slightly insipid pale chocolate hue, compared to his vibrant pink or flavoursome lemon yellow sisters.
Rather than matching it internally with genoise sponge and a buttercream dome, I decided upon a rich chocolate sponge. I quickly decided a 15cm buttercream dome would be far too difficult to achieve without massive seepage issues and decided instead to use a balti dish which coincidently was almost a perfect dome proportion. Square tin: 20cm, Balti tin:15cm
10.7.15: 10.35am Instead of attempting one very high cake, I thought it far safer to cook four square moist chocolate sponge cakes and a balti cake. That way ensuring maximum cooking control. Usual stuff in it- creamed butter and sugar, add eggs, fold in flour and cocoa- viola!
10.7.15: 13.22pm I made some chocolate buttercream- Icing sugar/butter/cocoa powder and sandwiched all layers together and cemented the dome on top. Decided sides needed smoothing with some extra buttercream. So far so good…
11.7.15: 00.12am I then made two lots of chocolate fondant icing, basically icing sugar/cocoa and water. Things started getting messy, out of control. Chocolate icing pouring down the sides of kitchen units, smearing over my hands, face, the cat, a child etc. I started to panic.
11.7.15: 2.45pm But I pulled it back from the brink of disaster, took some deep breaths and concentrated on finishing the job in hand. Most difficult part: spatulating cake onto cake board with 2 spatulas (and on my own). Concertinad, concetinaered,concerteenared/ folded greaseproof paper to mimic its dainty paper case, ran into some scale issues.
Once some dark chocolate was piped in the relevant areas ( at the relevant widths pro rata) I had managed to come out the other side and averted fondant disaster.
Here finished photo with its mini me.
