Ice Fondant Fancies

Fondant Fancies (French Fancies) are a personal favourite, this recipe takes them to a whole new level. These are lemon sponge fancies with lemon curd and blackberry buttercream filling, served covered in sugar glass.

Prep Time: 1.5hrs

Cook Time: 30 Mins

Difficulty: Medium

Serves: Makes 12 cakes

Ingredients

For the French Fancies

  • Self raising flour - 225g (8 oz)
  • Caster Sugar - 225g (8 oz)
  • Margarine or unsalted butter - 225g (8 oz)
  • eggs - 4
  • Baking powder - 0.5 tsp
  • Milk - circa 10 to 20 ml
  • White fondant icing - 500g (18oz)
  • Blue fondant icing - 500g (18oz)
  • Icing sugar - 1 handful
  • Lemon Curd - 6 tbsps
  • (optional) writing icing blue for decoration - 1 tube

For the Blackberry Buttercream

  • Blackberries - 150g (5 oz)
  • Unsalted butter - 115g (4 oz)
  • Icing sugar - circa 500g (18 oz)
  • Lemon juice - 2 tbsps

For the Sugar Glass

  • Caster Sugar - 1 kg
  • Tap water - as required
  • Blue gel food colouring (recommend Dr. Oetker) - 2 tubes

To Serve (Optional)

  • chocolates
  • fairy lights

Method

Step One - Make the Cake Batter

[Cream together  the butter/margarine and sugar until smooth

Beat in the eggs

Stir in the flour and baking powder

Or...just mix them all together at once with an electric whisk, as I did in the picture!

Add a splash of milk to loosen up the batter, so the it is a runny consistency.  The amount you needs depends on how large your eggs were, but won't be too much.  Play it by eye.

Place in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees C (fan) until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean (around 35 minutes).

 

Step Two - Blackberry Buttercream

[]Place the blackberries in a pan with the lemon juice, cover and simmer on a low heat until the blackberries break down.  Once they are soft, crush them with the back of a fork.  Keep simmering until the juice thickens, and becomes a consistency whereby it coats the back of a spoon when dipped in.

Strain the thickened blackberry puree through a sieve into your mixing bowl.  This will take a lot of encouragement, pushing it through the sieve with the back of a spoon, but eventually only the seeds will be left behind.

Add the butter to the bowl with the blackberry puree and some of the icing sugar, and start whisking.  Add more icing sugar bit by bit until it reaches a taste you like.  The amount of sugar you need will depend on the flavour of your blackberries, and how sweet you like your icing.  I used all of the quantity given.

Once you're happy with the flavour, keep whisking the icing for five minutes to stiffen it.

 

STEP Three - COOL & Cut

[]Once the sponge is ready, let it cool completely and then place on a chopping board.

Cut off the sides, then cut the remaining cake into squares about 2.5cm long/wide.  You'll probably have to cut off the top to make the squares perfectly even, unless your cake came out of the oven extremely flat

 

 

STEP Four - Coat

[]Ice the squares, making them as smooth as possible.  I found the easiest way was to do a thin coat of icing, let the cakes rest of a wile, then do another, thicker coat on top.  Smooth with a knife, and put down any remaining bumps with the back of a spoon dipped in hot water.

For the bump of icing on top of the fondant fancy, place icing into half-sphere silicone chocolate moulds and freeze.  These moulds are easily available online, or otherwise you could use a small ice cube tray, or just place a teaspoon of icing into clingfilm, roll it into a ball and freeze.

 

 

STEP Five - Finish the Fancies

[]Mix your fondant.  You can buy light blue fondant online, but I prefer to buy the readily-available white and royal blue colours, and mix them to get the shade I'm after.  Start by breaking off the desired amount of white icing for your cakes, then add chunks of blue bit by bit, kneading with your hands until the colours evenly combine.  Dust some icing sugar onto the kneading surface and your hands to stop the icing sticking.

Once happy with the colour, dust the surface and a rolling pin with icing sugar and roll out your fondant, until it is a few millimeters thick.

Place your frozen spheres of icing (from step four) on top of the cakes.

Cut a square of fondant and drape it over one of the cakes, making sure the sides reach all the way to the bottom.  Smooth down the sides, and use a knife to trim the excess icing at the corners and along the bottom edge.  Stick the cut corners together by smoothing with a knife (or your finger) dipped in hot water.  You can also use this method to patch any holes: place a piece of icing over the whole and smooth with the knife, until the joins are invisible.

Decorate the cakes however you choose; I used white and blue 'writing icing' and edible glitter.

 

 

STEP Six - Hot SUGAR

[]Place caster sugar in a pan and add tap wanter until just covered.  No need to stir.

Heat the sugar and water on a low-medium heat in a heavy-bottomed pan, using a sugar thermometer to monitor the temperature.  Don't be tempted to stir - leave it completely alone, or the sugar might crystalise.

Heat the sugar until it gets to 'hard crack' (153 degrees C).

When the sugar has reached this temperature, take it off the heat and let all the bubbles subside (this might take a minute or two), then stir in food dye.  It's important you use gel food dye - I tried with liquid, and it won't mix in.

 

 

 

STEP Seven - Sugar Glass

[]Spread the coloured sugar over a silicone sheet, or a chopping board covered in greaseproof paper.  Be very careful - it is extremely hot.

If the sugar hasn't crystalised, you'll be left with a clear sheet like the one in the picture.  If it has, your sugar sheet will be opaque.  One of my sheets crystalised so I ended up using a mixture of both types, and was pleased with how the final results looked.

You may need to repeat this process a few times depending on how much 'ice' you want for you centrepiece.

 

STEP Eight - Bring it All Together

[]