Make Craft Game

After going through my lengthy research of the different types of sugar, it was time to start baking! The first step of this technique is making the sponge. I started by beating the butter and superfine sugar. The butter must be softened when making a cake; I am not the biggest fan of getting butter chunks. My butter was a little harder than I would have liked, so I gave it extra time in the mixer.

While the butter was mixing, I pulled out a small bowl to hold the eggs. I always like opening an egg into a bowl first to help prevent eggshells from getting into the bake. This recipe has the eggs whisked together before they are added. I like to use this step to get as much air into the eggs as possible.

Then I mixed the eggs into the butter mixture. Scraping down the sides of the bowl is important for this process to remove the butter chunks as well. This is also when I slipped in the almond extract. The final ingredient is the self-raising flour. This is flour that already has some sort of leavening agent added to it (like baking powder, baking soda, etc.).

The final batter should be fluid but not flowing. I still had to scoop the batter from the bowl into the pan, so it was definitely not a flowy mix. And then I spread out the batter, getting it as even as possible, which is a challenge all onto itself. Finally, it was time to bake.

The next step of making these fondant fancies was the jam filling to go inside each slice. Making jam is a relatively simple process. First, I placed the raspberries and jam sugar into the pot. Well… I didn’t have jam sugar, so I placed my homemade jam sugar into the pot. Then I used a potato masher to mash everything together before placing it over a high heat.

At first, I was concerned about the lack of liquid in this mix, but the raspberries quickly showed just how much liquid they were carrying. Watching the sugar melt was rather enjoyable. I brought the mixture to a boil before reducing it to a simmer. I was aiming to get the temperature of the mixture to 221° Fahrenheit.

Since raspberries have seeds, the jam was then passed through a strainer to prevent seeds from being in the final mixture. Getting it through the strainer required a little arm work, but I had the strangest sense I had done this before… I did forget to scale my “jam sugar” recipe, so the jam ended up being a little sweeter than expected, but it was still delicious.

The next component of the fondant fancy was buttercream. The buttercream is needed to make a crumb coat on the cake and really give it that smooth finish. There is only one step for making buttercream. Put the butter, sugar, and almond extract into a mixer and mix. I typically mix them until I like the taste. And that’s more on the longer side.

With the cake out of the oven and having both the cake and jam cooled, it was time for the first part of the assembly. The fondant coating for the fondant fancy is a very active step, so having everything prepared beforehand was important. The first step was cutting the cake into 9 pieces (effectively splitting it into thirds in both directions).

Then I used a 2cm cutter to core out the center of the pieces. The holes are filled with the jam. I was surprised by the amount of filling that I was able to put. But I did keep the top of the cutouts to hide the jam inside. It just looks like a little piece was clipped instead of removed.

The last component of the fondant fancy was the fondant coating. This was the component I was dreading the most. I am not the biggest fan of working with fondants; it’s something I am not familiar with. Liquid fondant even less so. In fact, this was my first time really working with liquid fondant.

To add extra challenge, I had to stray from Paul’s recipe because fondant sugar is not easily found in my area. So, I needed to find a substitute. At first, I was thinking of looking for a new liquid fondant recipe, but I had a hard time finding anything that would work for me.

I used a recipe for liquid fondant that was a mixture of powdered sugar, corn syrup, and gelatin. This was effectively my version of fondant sugar. I boiled down the sugar as per the original recipe and added the red color. Red is such a difficult color to achieve, so it ended up being a bit more pink than red.

Then I used a spoon to coat the top and sides of each piece to create the fondant fancy. To do this, I needed to balance each slice on a fork while hovering over the bowl. This helps reduce the mess. It did end up still being a bit messy, though. But this is also where I noticed my mistakes. One, the liquid fondant was too thin; it didn’t coat as fully as I would have liked (and it didn’t dry properly either). Two, this stuff is unforgiving. Every bump and divot was clearly noticeable on the slices.