Jeff's Birthday and Fondant

My 9-year old granddaughter, Chloe asked me the other day if I knew what fondant was. I told her yes and asked her if she knew what it was. She described it as something like play-dough that was sweet. She said she saw it on an episode of Nailed It and she asked me if I would get her some. Of course I said yes. I also mentioned to her that if she had any extra when she was done making whatever it was she saw on the television show, she might want to use some to decorate her grandpa's birthday cake.
So we went to Jo-Ann Fabrics armed with coupons just in case the stuff was not on sale. Chloe was very excited. She chose some white and some with primary colors. There was also pastel fondant available but Chloe is not into those colors. She likes bold. She was disappointed that there was no purple as it is her favorite color. I reminded her that we could make purple so that helped her make the primary color selection. Fondant is not cheap. We came home with 2 boxes of the stuff to the tune of over $20. And that was after the coupons were applied.

I inquired about the television show, Nailed It and of course Chloe ran for her tablet and showed me an episode of it. I'm pretty sure they use fondant in more than half of the episodes of that show.  So now that she had the fondant I asked her what she was going to make and I think the question overwhelmed her. Or the show did. So I went back to my suggestion that she decorate her grandpa's birthday cake. The only problem was that I hadn't made him a cake yet. Chloe agreed to wait until the next day to use the fondant so I promptly went about looking for the right cake recipe.

After some thought, I decided cupcakes were the way to go. That way she could spend more time decorating them in a variety of ways. And her little sister, Avery could help too. It was a win-win. I chose a vanilla sour-cream cupcake recipe that yielded only 14 cupcakes. I hate when there are leftover baked goods that go to waste and since we don't really eat many sweets, I knew I would eventually be throwing cupcakes away.

The next day we all gathered around the kitchen table with a plate full of freshly-baked and cooled cupcakes. I gave the girls each their own cutting board, rolling pin and a plastic knife. They each took a cupcake and started to decorate them. Chloe says the first one she wanted to make for her grandpa would have the 'Green Packers' logo on it. So so cute!

Then we tasted the fondant and got a unanimous yuck! The box states that you can add flavoring and I guess we should have. For certain, we are all fondant rookies. I guess this means the girls won't be eating the leftovers.

As it usually goes with children, they lost interest rather quickly. With 14 cupcakes to decorate, they grew tired of it after the third one. So their mama started to decorate some which sparked the girls' imaginations and they came back to the table to decorate some more. As it goes with Chloe, there had to be one with a dinosaur on it. And Avery had to make one with a heart. The Green Bay Packers' green and gold was well represented on many of the cupcakes.

I sure wish I would have taken more photos while we decorated the cupcakes but I was too engrossed in being part of the experience than to stop and grab the camera. We all had such a great time.

So here are a few of the finished cupcakes after we sand happy birthday and ate some.