Cute as a Button Cupcakes

B is for Birthday:  Cute as a Button Cupcakes

When my youngest daughter turned one last summer, I chose a “cute as a button” theme for her party and it was so darn, well, CUTE!  Stay tuned for more posts in the near future about the cute as a button party, but today we are going to talk  about cake!  Instead of a full sized cake, I opted to go with a cupcake tree and a little smash cake.  Awhile back I was admiring some farm animal cupcakes that a friend of mine had whipped up for her son’s birthday party.  “Fondant!” she exclaimed.  “You must try it.  It is so easy and you will love it.”  Although she was very confident that I would have fun with it, I remained intimidated.  However, as I thought about my cute as a button cupcakes, I decided to take a shot at this mysterious substance called fondant.  Really, how hard could it be to make little buttons to add to my cupcakes???

My first stop was the local craft store to hit up the baking and cake decorating section.  Sure enough, there was prepackaged fondant in a variety of colors.  You can also buy plain white fondant and add your own coloring, but that also seemed way too scary for my first attempt.  I decided on a multi-pack of four different colors and also picked up an inexpensive fondant roller.  This handy little tool is a small rolling pin that comes with guide rings that slide on to each end to help you roll out a uniform depth.

When I got home, I gathered my supplies and went to work.  I carefully opened the package of pink fondant and gently kneaded it.  It was the consistency of sugary play dough.  It quickly became soft and pliable and I rolled it out to a 1/8 inch thickness using my roller.  It took me a few tries to find the right size circle cutter.  None of my small cookie cutters were the right size so I started experimenting with things I found around the house.  I ended up using two bottle caps from various beauty products (thoroughly washed, of course!) – one to cut the buttons and the other to make slightly indented inner ring for detail.  Next I used a toothpick to carefully add the button holes.  I lined them up on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper and let them air dry.  Here is what they looked like during the drying process:

After several days they had dried to a hard, matte finished and were ready to use.  I ordered my cupcakes and smash cake from my favorite local bakery with just simple white frosting and some coordinating sprinkles.  The morning of the party I carefully added the fondant buttons and displayed them on a cupcake stand.  No one could believe that I had made the buttons myself.  I was so pleased with how they turned out.  Here is the cute little smash cake:

And, my girlfriend was right!  Fondant is very easy to use and super fun!  Go on!  Try it!

What has your experience with fondant been like?  Tell me your story!

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