1. Prepare the naked cake masked with ganache or buttercream twice and geometrically correct with 90-degree sides upwards and as sharp as possible edges. The sharper the edges when masked, the sharper the edges when coated. Then place it in the fridge (no longer than 30 minutes to avoid too much condensation).

2. Take measurements of the sides and top.

3. Roll four individual panels of fondant, for the sides, a little larger than needed and place them on individual square or rectangular corrugated cardboard platforms so that lifting and attaching can be done with comfort. Wait for 30 minutes for that fondant to become a little more firm and cut-table.

4. Roll fondant for the top surface, a little larger than needed and place on a firm temporary cake board, lightly dusted with starch, so that it does not stick to the board.

5. Place the cake upside down on the fondant and gently push down. The condensation should be enough for gluing otherwise use a small amount of water spray for moisture.

6. Cut 90-degree corners out of all four previously rolled out side panels.

7. Glue the sides by lifting the panels with the cardboard and pressing with the cardboard so that the geometrical shape will be maintained. Brush a little water around the joining corners.

8. Cut the extensions by using a sharp blade (box cutter) and fondant leveler to drive the blade straight downwards.

9. Remove all other extensions carefully using a blade.

10. Place actual cake board on the cake (bottom surface) and turn the entire cake upside down. Remove the temporary board from the top (the surface with the fondant). Brushing may be necessary to remove remaining starch.

There is currently no free video tutorial on this but I have shown it in a few premium tutorials. If you want me to make a video tutorial, please leave a comment.

Thank you

More importantly, I want to share the process that is used so that you can apply it to other 3D cakes of this nature. This cake was actually made a very long time ago but I use the same technique for a lot of different 3D cakes. I do not have step by step photos for the process of the cake (since it was made a long time ago), however I will try to show and explain as much as I can with drawings.

Cake Modelling Paste

The detail in the head is primarily the result of a method that involves shaping a basic form, coating it with a chocolate layer, and then adding a layer of “mixed cake” over the chocolate. This final layer of mixed cake allows for sculpting and modelling with more detail. It would be very difficult to try to “carve” a cake into a detailed form for the head, especially when it is quite a small area. So using mixed cake to shape the head in more detail works pretty well.

Ultimately, the ideal type of consistency you would want when working with any modelling material, is something that is pliable, responsive and strong enough to hold and keep its position. For example, something like artists modelling clay, or even children’s Playdoh is pretty good.

So what about when it comes to cake? Well, there is a way to create a Playdoh-like material, with cake. If you take a layered cake (sponge and ganache), and just mix and knead it until the sponge and the ganache are completely mixed together. What you end up with is a paste that you can use to model and sculpt certain areas of your cake. Due to the butter content in the ganache (specifically referring to layered mud cake), if you put this mixed cake into the fridge for a while, it will get pretty hard. On the flip side, if you knead it and play with it too much in your hands, the butter will melt and it will get too soft to work with. So as long as you can maintain the right balance and keep it within that optimal range in temperature, you can use this mixed cake to get quite detailed with your modelling.

Try not to use this mixed cake paste too much on the cake because although it is technically still “cake”, it has lost the texture of a typical cake so someone might bite into a big chunk of textureless cake which may not be the best eating experience. All the small air bubbles in the sponge have been squished out so when someone eats it, it may feel like they are eating a paste or an under baked sponge or something like that. Because of this, it should only be used where necessary and in small amounts.

Please note: This method will only work with cakes that have a hard setting cream layer and a heavier type of sponge. For example, butter sponge with butter cream, or mud cake sponge with ganache. It may not work as effective with a softer type of sponge. Another thing that I should mention is that this cake paste is not really for the tiny little parts. The ears, horns, eyes and nostrils are still created with fondant, after the head is coated with fondant. I would say that mixed cake is more for the smaller parts of the cake shaping stage, rather than the final detailing stage.

Chocolate Power

Sometimes when making a cake, there are certain parts that are susceptible to collapsing or deforming when the cake settles at room temperature. For example, in the case of the giraffe cake, the neck is supported with a metal threaded rod (covered with a plastic tube) but the head is protruding outwards from the neck so the head may be prone to collapsing later if not supported correctly. So what I usually do in this situation is carve the basic shape of the head, then cover the area with a layer of chocolate, then add more details over the chocolate layer using the cake paste. I have written about this technique in a previous article where I use it to strengthen tiers of wedding cakes.

So using the method I have mentioned, lets take a look at the giraffe cake and see how it was done. Heres a diagram I have drawn to show how everything I have mentioned so far works.

Keep in mind that this is a side view so although you can’t see it here, the cake mix is used for the sides of the giraffe’s head as well.

As you can see in the diagram, the basic shape of the giraffe is formed, and then coated with a layer of chocolate. Then the detailed modelling is done over the chocolate using the cake paste. This allows further modelling to be done later, after the coating is done. If we did the cake mix first, then chocolate, it would be very difficult to apply the chocolate skin without changing the shapes you have already modelled with the cake mix.

Also take notice of the thickness of the chocolate. Notice how it is thicker near the base, and also take into account that since the chocolate is at least 2mm thick, it can change proportions (make the head too big etc). Because of this, it may be a good thing to make the head slightly smaller before the chocolate. Remember, there’s also a fondant coating coming as well! It’s a common mistake that I have made way too many times and you end up with a really big head that is out of proportion and looks a little cartoony instead of realistic.

This works for a lot of situations but what if the head was bigger, or protruding out a bit more, or you just wanted to be sure that nothing was going to happen to the head…then chocolate alone probably won’t do the job. Since the head of this giraffe is quite small, chocolate should do the job but if you wanted to be sure the head won’t collapse, another way to do it would be something like this…

Now you can see that the head is supported with a small platform (cut from 3mm thick acrylic sheet) secured in place with hexagonal nuts on the threaded rod. The metal used should be galvanised to prevent any metal contamination but to go one step further, the rod is covered with large plastic straws that fits perfectly and the hexagonal nuts are coated with chocolate before placing any cake on it. The chocolate helps separates the metal from the cake.

Coating

You may be wondering how the giraffe was coated with fondant, since it is such an awkward shape. Obviously it would be too difficult to just roll out a piece of fondant and unwrap it over the cake (like you would do with a regular wedding cake) because the neck and the head would cause the fondant to tear as its being unwrapped.

So basically, I coated the giraffe in three parts. Head, neck and body. First the head, was just a small piece placed over the head and slowly pressed on and around the snout. This piece ended around the start of the top of the neck. After coating the head, I rolled another rectangular piece and covered the neck vertically and used a blade to cut vertically along the neck to remove the excess. Then to cover the body, I rolled out a large piece of fondant, and cut a straight line from the centre out. This cut part would wrap around the neck and re join on the chest of the giraffe.

After all three parts were coated, the legs and the tail of the giraffe were modelled with fondant and glued to the cake with water. The ears and horns were also made with fondant and glued to the head with water. To blend all of these attached fondant parts (legs, ears, horns, tail) I just piped some royal icing along the edges and then smoothed the royal icing with a brush and water.

Airbrushing

After the giraffe was coated with fondant and all the extra parts were attached, it was ready to be airbrushed. There is no real trick to this. I just made sure I had plenty of reference images of giraffes and their unique fur pattern, and then just took it really slow and copied the reference images as much as I could. I guess a couple key points to mention would be to make sure you don’t rush. Just focus on a small section at a time. Also, as with most painting, start with the lighter colours and work your way to the darker colours. So I first air brushed the yellow, then orange, then brown, then black.

Conclusion

I hope you found this article helpful and learned something new that you can use in your own cake decorating ventures. Of course I am not saying that this is the only way to do this so if you have any ideas on different ways or would like to share the way you do would do it, I would love to hear your thoughts so please leave a comment Thanks for reading!

I wanted to share some quick tips on how I overcome these issues. I am sure there are many other ways to take care of bulges on your cake but this is how I have tackled this problem for the last 10 years at Yeners Cakes. Air bubbles and bumps can have some pretty detrimental effect on your masterpiece, especially if its a wedding masterpiece. As the topic of this article is to deal with the air bubbles, I won’t go into any details on ’how to coat a cake with fondant.

Through out this entire process, what helps me a lot is that I only switch on lights on one side of my room at work, and the other side has no lights. The purpose of this is to cast shadows, so you can see the bulges a lot more easily. Ive taken two pictures to show you what a difference it can make. Of course I am speaking from my own experience, and it depends on your specific environment. This may not even be an issue for you, but in my work place, it is quite bright and when theres lights coming from all around you, theres no shadows, and when theres no shadows, it’s very easy to miss some air bubbles.

There are a few types of bulging that can occur. I will outline them and provide my solutions.

For this tutorial you may need…

• A pin
• Lighting on one side of the room
• Soft rubber scraper
• Icing smoother
• Chocolate

Type 1 – Air getting trapped WITHIN the fondant

This can happen in a couple of ways. One way is while kneading the fondant air bubbles can get trapped inside the fondant. I get rid of these air bubbles before I place the rolled out fondant over the cake. So when I am rolling and flattening the fondant out, I remove these air bubbles with a pin/needle. The thinner the needle the better so it leaves less of a noticeable hole on the cake. A good way to avoid leaving a mark on the cake is by poking the hole from a low angle.

It’s a good idea to remove as many of these air bubbles before you cover the cake with the icing. If you cover the cake with the icing, and you start using a cake smoother and pushing on the icing, as the bubble tries to escape, it will cause the icing to stretch away form the air bubble. Then, later on, if you poke these air bubbles with the pin after coating the cake, because you pushed on it already, the icing in that area is thinner leaving you with indentations, like craters on the moon. Not good.

Type 2 – Air getting trapped UNDER the fondant
Another cause of bulging is air getting trapped between the fondant and the cake. Fixing this is pretty much the same as the first type above. What I do is unroll the fondant over the cake, then without touching the fondant around the sides, start with the top surface of the cake and use a cake smoother to flatten it down. Push outwards from the centre so you push the air bubbles out from the surface before you push the fondant down around the edges and sides of the cake. If theres any air bubbles that I can see, I will use a pin or just lift up the sides and push the air bubble out.

After the top is flat, I slowly work my way around the edge, pushing the fondant down around the sides of the cake. Using the cake smoother, I start from one side, and work my way around, pushing the air bubbles in the same direction and poking the pin to remove them as I go. I just do about 5cm’s at a time so I’m not trying to push air bubbles too far. After I’ve gone all the way around the cake, I use a rubber scraper and give it a few more laps around the cake making sure I didn’t miss any. This step is where the lighting is really going to matter. Having that one sided lighting is really going to make it easier to see the bubbles. Also, keep turning your cake around and looking at it from different angles.

If air bubbles are left under the fondant, they may expand as the cake slowly reaches room temperature and gets softer. Then you may end up with a big golf ball sized bump on your cake that can also be very difficult to fix if your rolling fondant has dried up. I always coat my cakes straight out of the fridge so they are nice and firm to push against while coating. Because of this, the cake makes its transition to room temperature while its coated with fondant. So that I have the freedom to eliminate any bubbles I may have missed that may expand later on, I always wrap my freshly coated cake with cling wrap and let it settle into room temperature for at least an hour or two. If there is an expansion of an air bubble, the cling wrap helps to keep the fondant soft so that I can just poke a hole into the bubble and push the air out with a cake smoother. What you don’t want to do is start decorating your cake immediately after coating it with icing. If you stick on any sugar items, a ribbon, do intricate piping etc, you will get very upset when all that hard work is on top of an expanding bulge.

If it so happens that you thought you removed all the air bubbles, left your cake to settle and come back to discover a massive extrusion on the side of your cake that is too dry to remove without cracking the icing, you may be able to cover it up with the use of decorations such as ribbons, piping, ornaments etc. Although, whether this is possible will of course depend on the design of the cake.

If you can’t cover it up with decorations, you can use a scraper to scrape some royal icing over the cracks. This isn’t the best way as you will probably still see a differentiation between the royal icing and the fondant, but its the next best thing after re-doing the whole lot from scratch.

Type 3 – Filling getting soft and pushing outwards forming a rim all around your cake
This one is much more difficult to fix because the bulge is not cause by air that you can just poke a hole at and remove. This problem will be more apparent with cakes with a softer and more liquid filling. It is mainly cause by gravity so this problem usually occurs because either the filling is really soft, or the cake is really high and too much weight is pushing down onto the filling…or both.

What I do do avoid this type of bulge is this. Before I mask the cake, I will scrape a layer of chocolate around the sides of the cake. This can be a tricky and messy task if you haven’t got any experience with it and it may take a bit of practice. Just make sure you keep the surface smooth so there aren’t any little bumps when we are masking the cake with ganache later on.

So I will get some melted chocolate, then dip one side of a scraper in the chocolate, and scrape it on the cake. Again, just small sections at a time. Repeat this until the whole cake (or more importantly, just the sides) is covered with a few millimetres of chocolate. You can leave the top without chocolate but I like to do the whole cake so it is stronger, especially with tiered cakes as the extra strength comes in handy when handling and stacking the cakes. Be careful not to apply too much chocolate at one time. If you want to make the chocolate thicker, apply a little first, and wait till it dries, then apply more. As the chocolate dries, it contracts a little in size, and if its too thick, it will crack. Depending on the size of the crack, it wont be too big of an issue and the chocolate will still serve its purpose (stop the filling from pushing out). If cracks are too big, just fill them up with a bit more chocolate.

Normally I would use my left hand to smear the overhang onto the top of the cake but I had to hold the camera

Essentially we are creating a hard shell around the cake so that the soft butter cream, ganache or whatever filling you are using, is not going to soften up and get squeezed out the sides, causing the bulge. It will be stopped by this chocolate dam I do this with almost every wedding cake tier I make that is 75mm high or more. It depends on your filling though. If you have a really soft cake thats only 5cm high, maybe you still want to take this precaution. 95% of the time, I deal with mud cake and it is never a problem with cakes that are only 5cm high.

Another way to prevent this type of bulge around the cake is to pipe a circular dam near the edge of the cake (like this) and put the filling within that wall. I have seen some people discuss this on various tutorials online but personally I have never had to do this (other than when I was studying at TAFE) method because I mostly deal with mud cake and ganache as the filling.

If you coat a cake and have this problem, you may still be able to fix it, or reduce it at worst. When this rim bulge happened to us one day, we used a thick ribbon (higher then the cake) and wrapped the ribbon around the cake tightly and sticky taped it, kind of like a belt. Then waited till the icing was completely dry and the cake had reached room temperature. After removing the ribbon, the fondant was dry and strong enough to act as a dam and hold stop the bulging. It probably won’t be a 100% fix but it will surely make an improvement if you are facing this problem.

So thats it! Pretty simple ways that I have been using for years to eliminate this annoying problem. I hope this article was helpful to someone and if anyone knows any other ways to prevent air bubbles and bulging when coating cakes with fondant, feel free to post in the comment section below.

Thanks for reading!

A thick sugar paste, similar to gum paste, is molded into shapes. When dried, it is hard and brittle. Made with gelatin, water and confectioner’s sugar, it hardens quickly and can be shaped for a short while by hand, and after hardening, with electric grinders, cutters, sandpaper and assorted files. (Source)

Pastillage (pronounced PAHS-tee-AHJ) can be used to make very large and complex structures. The gelatine contents causes it to dry very hard and very quickly as opposed to gum paste which stays soft and dries slowly. Because of this fast drying property, pastillage can be a very tricky material to work with so I am going to try to give you some tips to help make it a little easier to work with.

Here is our recipe for pastillage, in case you need it.

1. When mixing pastillage in a mixer, often you reach a smooth white texture before all of the icing sugar is mixed completely. So you will need to mix it for a bit longer to make sure all icing sugar at the base of the bowl is also mixed in with the gelatine. If you mix this dough by hand, place all the icing sugar in a bowl or just on the table. Make a well in the center of the icing sugar, then pour the very hot gelatine mix in the center and start mixing from the center with a wooden spoon. Once it’s cooled down a bit by mixing with some of the icing sugar in the middle, continue to mix it by hand. Be careful and ensure the gelatine has cooled down so you do not burn your hands.

2. Scrape the pastillage out of the bowl and soak the bowl immediately with water because if there is any remaining dough stuck to the bowl, it will be very difficult to clean if you let it dry.

3. While the dough is still relatively soft, divide it into small parts (approximately 200-300 grams) and store them in individual plastic bags (can be plastic sleeves) and keep all the bags in an air-tight container. This will make it easier to just grab and use in future and you won’t have to cut through hard pastillage to get a workable amount later on.

4. Keep this air-tight container in the fridge if you have to store it for more than a week. Gelatine inside the dough is protein which can get moldy if it is not dry. So parts produced from pastillage that are completely dry will not get moldy but because we stored the rest of our dough in the container while it was still soft and moist (because the water contents are still not dry), the dough in the container will eventually get moldy. If you do not wish to store your pastillage in the fridge, and prefer to keep the storage container in room temperature, you have to use a food preservative such as 202 (Potassium Sorbate) melted with the gelatine mixture. Preservatives are not recommended in today’s health conscious society so don’t use it unless you really need to. If you do, a safe ratio is half a gram of 202 for 1kg dough. So for example, our pastillage recipe has a total weight of 869g so half a gram of 202 is ok.

5. When ever you want to use pastillage, take 1 bag at a time (unless you need more than that) and heat it up (inside the bag), in the microwave oven. This is called “conditioning pastillage”. If you want to use this magic dough all the time, you have to practice this part of the process and master it. How long you need to heat the dough is an important question. Here is my formula for this.

Let’s say we have 200g. First, remove the last digit. So 200 becomes 20. Then divide 20 by 2. So we have 10. So 10 seconds in the microwave will give you a good start for a 200g portion. Keep in mind that this formula doesn’t mean that you will have perfectly conditioned pastillage every time. There are other factors. Like, what is the temperature of the pastillage before you place it in the microwave? Did it just come from the fridge? How powerful is the microwave you are using? etc. The trick here is just to heat it up in very short amounts and check it each time. Another thing…if you have previously used and heated this portion of pastilage (for example…it’s left over from a day ago), it may have lost some of its moisture contents due to evaporation. So you may need to add this “lost” water back in to compensate. So just spray some water on the pastillage and knead it in after heating.

6. Let say you remove the dough from microwave and you realize the dough is too warm. If it’s too warm, it will be in a sticky state and it will tend to stick to the table while kneading, making it a little difficult to knead properly. So take it out from bag and spray some cooking oil spray on the surface of the table or sprinkle a bit starch (don’t use icing sugar). Start kneading till the dough reaches room temperature. If you start rolling or molding or shaping while the dough still warm you will realize that the pastillage quickly develops a dry skin around the surface, and trying to cut it is almost impossible because it sticks to your knife. If you are trying to shape a figurine, cracks will appear before you are able to finish it and you will have start all over again. So make sure you have it in an optimal condition before you start using it.

7. At this stage you may want to use some shortening on the table and your hands. This will help to keep the dough from sticking on the table and your hands. If you use corn starch here, it will stop the pastillage from sticking, but it will also cause it to slip back and forwards on the table, specially when you are shaping pieces between the table surface and your hands.

With pastillage, there is often no wastage. Place all the off cuts in to the bag before they develop a skin, and you can use it again by heating it up in the microwave and mixing it all together again.

8. VERY IMPORTANT – Make it a habit of cleaning the surface of the table with wet towel followed by dry towel. Also do this with your cutting tools and modelling tools. If you are cutting a shape out of rolled pastillage (eg. using a stencil) with a pen knife, it is a good idea to clean your pen knife after every movement. If you do not do these things, there will be small chunks of pastillage that dry on the edge of your knife, on the surface of the table or even in palm of your hands. These chunks will cause problems and you won’t achieve smooth, clean results.

9. The time it takes to completely dry a piece of pastillage depends on thickness and volume. Placing the pastillage on a flat piece of corrugated cardboard is a good way to shorten the time it takes because the slightly uneven surface allows for some breathing underneath the pastillage. Large hand shaped pieces resting on a bed of starch (in a tray) is very helpful. The starch will withdraw moisture quicker and also maintain shape and form while drying. For example, if you were to mold the shape of a ball, and place it to dry on a flat tray, the perfect shape of the ball will be compromised. Drying it in a tray filled with starch will keep it exactly how you left it.

10. How you glue pastillage can vary depending on the situation and requirement. Each with its own pro’s and con’s, here is a list of gluing methods I use.

• A brush in a cup of plain water.
• A water spray bottle.
• A brush in a cup with a little bit of egg white.
• A brush in a cup with a little bit of Tylose and water (mixed).
• White chocolate
• Royal icing in a paping bag.

In some cases I will even use very hot liquid pastillage with a little addition of water (over melted in the microwave). If done correctly, and not moved around too much while drying for a couple of minutes, this method will hold like cement.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article and you learned something from it. Don’t forget to check out our recipe for pastillage. It is the same recipe I have been using for years to successfully produce thousands of cake decorations on thousands of cakes. If you have any of your own tips regarding pastillage, feel free to leave a comment below. Thanks again!