Sometimes I get these crazy ideas. Several months ago, I decided that I should make a Perry the Platypus cake for the kiddo’s 5th birthday. So, I went online and scoped out some sites where people had documented their Perry the Platypus cake process.
My-oh-my, this 5th birthday has snuck right up on me. I have thought to myself, for as busy as I am, I must be crazy to even think I should attempt this project. But, it’s for my little girl, who *loves* Perry, the quirky little teal-colored platypus on one of her favorite Disney channel shows, Phineas and Ferb. In the end, it may not look like the most appetizing cake, in the shape of a platypus and whatnot, but it’s the thought that counts, right? She has no idea that I’m making it and she’s going to love it.
Over the past couple of days, I have gathered my ingredients (kept forgetting things and had to keep going back to the store to get them) and now, I am ready to do this thing.
Since her birthday isn’t for another couple of days, today, I made preparations. I followed the excellent instructions that I found over at Dabbled and Peggy Weaver’s site.
The first thing I did to prepare was make the base cake and Perry’s body, er, the pound cake. I took a shortcut on this one due to time constraints and the fact that I don’t want to completely screw this up. So, a box chocolate cake and box pound cake it is. The chocolate cake will serve as the base (13×9) and the pound cake baked in a loaf pan (9×5) will be Perry’s body, which lays on top of the chocolate base cake. I haven’t completely decided what the base cake will look like yet. However, I can tell you that I do have a couple of cute ideas for it.
While my cakes were baking, I prepared the marshmallow fondant. I put off doing this for a very long time tonight. I don’t know why I was so nervous about making it. Probably because it’s late and I didn’t want to end up just throwing in the towel. Well, I did it. I made it. It “looks” right. We’ll see how things go tomorrow when I’m actually sculpting with it and not just staring at it. Oh yeah, and when we eat it.
First thing I did was melt marshmallows, which was really fun (I’m not kidding). The fondant recipe that Dot from Dabbled and Peggy from What’s Cooking America calls for is a 16 oz. bag of mini marshmallows but I used a 10 oz. bag of regular size marshmallows. I did cut them in half. I don’t know why. Maybe because – well, have you ever microwaved a Peep?
Nuking the marshmallows went very smoothly (pun intended). 30 seconds, stop and stir. 30 more seconds, stop and stir (mine were just about fully melted at this point), about 30 more seconds in the micro and stir and I had my own homemade marshmallow fluff. Then, I dumped almost an entire bag of powdered sugar on top of the melted marshmallows. Now, that’s what I call a sugar on sugar crime.
Next comes the FUN part. First thing I did before slathering Crisco all over my counter top was antibacterial it and wipe it with a warm wash cloth. Then, with a huge grin on my face because I was allowed to make this mess, I spread a thin layer of Crisco over a large area of my counter top. I dumped my bowl of melted marshmallows and powdered sugar onto my counter top and Weee! (Don’t forget to grease up your hands really good.)
Immediately, I started to knead the mixture like I was making bread dough for a Stromboli (which has been added to my list of things to make in the near future).
I kneaded that baby up for a good 10 minutes or so, adding a half tablespoon of water here and there to make the icing more pliable. I dumped the rest of the powdered sugar on and kneaded it in. I added several more half tablespoons of water because the icing seemed pretty dry. Soon enough, I had a very happy lump of marshmallow fondant icing laying on my counter top:
Told you.
I greased up my ball of happy fondant and wrapped it in plastic wrap to store in the refrigerator. I didn’t have a large ziplock bag, so I put my wrapped fondant into a grocery store bag and wrapped it up pretty tight, so no air goes in. Hopefully the icing will be in tact tomorrow. By the way, I did not color my fondant yet.
After the fondant was wrapped up and taking it’s spot in the frig, I took the cooled cakes out of their pans and wrapped them in plastic wrap. They also went into the refrigerator overnight.
See how my cakes split on the top? I over-beat the batter! It was hard to tell what I was doing with my super powerful hand mixer.
So, that’s all for this evening ladies and gents. I will check on my fondant in the morning and possibly add some food color. I don’t intend to completely assemble the cake until later on tomorrow night, so it’s fresh for Friday.
Stay tuned for part 2 of my Perry the Platypus cake exploration!
melted marshmallows and powdered sugar
