All tied up
Bows can add a nice finishing touch to cakes, so I thought I’d squeeze in one final (festive) post before the year’s out. Here’s a super simple guide to making a small fondant bow (warning, will be picture heavy!)…
Firstly, apologies for the messy work surface – I wasn’t planning on this tutorial but as I was making the bow I thought it’d be a good idea so just took a few photos as I went along.
To start with, you’ll need some sugarpaste/fondant. I’m using Renshaw’s ready to roll red icing (starting to see the festive theme yet?) Roll out a piece of fondant and cut into two rectangular shapes, you don’t want it too thin or too thick, I think mine was about 0.5cm in thickness.
Next, use just one of the rectangular pieces, fold the ends into the centre, with one end slightly overlapping the other. This has already started forming the bow shape – simple!
Pinch the centre of the bow together and instantaneously, a bow appears! It’s important at this stage to check the loops of the bow are holding themselves up, this is why it’s important not to have the fondant too thin, otherwise it would just fall onto itself.
Take the other rectangular piece of fondant and cut off a thin strip. This will become the strip that ties around the centre of the bow to make it look neater and cover and joins.
Wrap the strip around the bow and pinch together on the pack of the bow to secure in place. Don’t worry too much about what the join looks like because this will be hidden from view! You can use the bow just like this, or you can add the ‘tails’ in the next step..
Take the remaining piece of rectangular fondant and fix underneath the bow, you can secure this into place with a small splash of water.
Lastly, all you’ll need to do is cut the tail down the centre to create the ‘tails’ and voila, a simple bow! If you’ve used any icing sugar to prevent fondant sticking and you’ve got some remaining on the bow, brush it with a little water and it will vanish.
I hope that was a useful tutorial, it’s quite a simple technique to master and gives beautiful results. I ended up adding my bow onto my Christmas fruit cake alongside a holly wreath, but there are unlimited options as to what you can do with the bows – let me know what you end up doing with yours!
All that’s left is to say thank you for reading this blog over the past year – no doubt that I’ll be back with more posts in the new year, so here’s wishing you a wonderful 2014!
