Mastic for sculpting various figures for cakes is very popular today. We invite you to familiarize yourself with one very simple recipe and different figures as ideas for cakes.
Mastic began to be actively used in cooking not very long ago, but it quickly became popular. Today, each cake or pastry has begun to be decorated with different figures. This mass allows you to create real masterpieces, and therefore it is not surprising that confectioners love it so much.
What is mastic and is it difficult to work with?
Mastic
Mastic is a very thick mass, like plasticine. But you can still eat it. It is also important to note that mastic comes in different types.
The most famous at the moment are:
- Honey . This is the softest mass of all and is easy to sculpt from.
- Gelatinous . Characterized by rapid hardening and hardening
- Dairy _ It is used more often than others due to its low cost. Its main component is condensed milk. It can be used as a base coating for cakes and for sculpting small figures.
- Marzipan . It is usually used to cover cakes. Figures cannot be made from it because the mass is very soft
- Universal . This type is sold in candy stores. It is used for both modeling and coating. The taste is not even different from what you can cook yourself
- Floral . This mastic makes excellent jewelry, especially small details.
Each of the presented mastics is good in its own way, but in order to choose the most suitable one for yourself, you should try each of them and learn how to work with it.
The game that captivated millions
To make it easier for you to understand all the intricacies and create a cake decoration in accordance with your favorite game, you should learn some of its features.
The first thing that catches your eye is the playing field itself and the characters, since it has a cubic appearance. The entire game world consists of 3D cubes, the animals also look a little strange. Yes, however, everything looks very original.
There are a lot of game situations and developments.
For example, 5 game modes that allow you to either build your own objects or observe those around you. There are a lot of animals and monsters, many different items and other possibilities.
Not a single child will refuse if you ask him to tell you about the game and what character he is, as well as ask for permission to observe the progress of the gameplay. If you succeed, then look carefully at the baby’s character himself and what animals he interacts with, what monsters he fights.
When creating a cake based on the game for a child’s birthday, a similar lesson will be very useful. It will be possible to make figurines of characters with whom your child is friends, and it will not be difficult to repeat the figurine of the player himself.
Sugar mastic for sculpting figures at home: description, step-by-step recipe
Sugar mastic
Homemade mastic is very easy to make and we offer you one of the simplest recipes:
Mastic composition
Cooking method:
- Take a wide bowl and sift powdered sugar into it and add dry milk. Mix the ingredients and add condensed milk.
- Next we mix the future mastic like a regular dough. While you stir, gradually add lemon juice, cognac and coloring. As a result, you will get a pleasant thick mass that will feel pleasant on your hands and you can sculpt good figures from it.
Mastic has a huge advantage because it allows you to create beautiful figures of any size. In particular, it can be useful when you want to decorate a cake or pastries for a holiday.
Icing
Icing or ice pattern is another great way to decorate a homemade cake. This technique is usually used in the confectionery industry when decorating wedding cakes. However, no one bothers you to decorate a cake with icing, for example: for New Year's Eve. Icing is rightfully considered a universal method of decoration, since such patterns do not spread and adhere well to any confectionery surface. This decoration looks like an ice pattern on glass. To make this decoration you will need to take:
- powdered sugar – 500 g (usually it takes a little more);
- egg whites – 3 pcs.;
- lemon juice – 3 teaspoons;
- glycerin – 1 teaspoon.
First, all the ingredients need to be cooled. Then carefully crack the eggs, separate the whites from the yolks and place in a clean, fat-free bowl. The last procedure can be carried out by simply wiping the inside of the dish with a slice of lemon. Beat the egg whites with a mixer at the lowest speed. There is no need to beat for a long time - two minutes is enough. Now you can add the remaining ingredients to the whites and continue beating the mixture until it turns white. Cover the bowl with the prepared “ice” mass with film and put it in the refrigerator for an hour. During this time, all the formed bubbles should burst. Ready! However, it will not be possible to work with this material without special equipment. You will have to purchase a pastry syringe with special attachments. The icing needs to be transferred into a syringe. In this case, you need to put the narrowest nozzle on the tool. This material can be used to draw lace, make various inscriptions, decorate borders, etc. The only limitation is that the surface of the confectionery product should not be sticky or prone to dripping. But the icing fits perfectly on mastic or hard glaze.
How to mold a toddler with mastic: step-by-step instructions
Mastic toddler
To create a toddler, it is better to make body mastic. This is done by adding the appropriate coloring agent during preparation.
Stage 1 . Roll into an oval shape like an egg. It is required for the body. Take a toothpick and make a hole for the belly button slightly below the center.
Stage 2 . Let's make the head. Roll a small ball. In this case, we take less amount of mastic than for the body. You need to insert a toothpick into the body, on which the head will rest.
- Make holes in the head for the eyes. Make a small nose. It should be flattened in size 4-5 mm. It would be enough
- We also draw the mouth and dimples from a smile with a toothpick.
- For the ears, make two small balls. Roll them up and make a couple of indentations in the center.
Stage 3 . Now secure the head to the body by placing it on a toothpick.
Stage 4 . Let's start sculpting the handles. For your hands, just take a little bit of mastic and roll the sausages first. Use a toothpick to draw fingers on one end.
Stage 5 . Attach your arms to your torso. If the parts do not stick together well, run a brush along the joints. Pre-moisten it with water.
Additionally, you can make some toys, flowers and other decorations for your baby’s hands.
Fruits for decoration
What could be easier than decorating a homemade cake with fresh fruit or delicious pieces of fruit? Perhaps this is a rhetorical question. This design option could indeed be considered the simplest, if not for one “but”. Fruits are not very keen to fit onto the cake layers baked for them. So you can’t do without cream, glaze or jelly here either. The choice of “substrate” largely depends on the fruit. For strawberries, simple buttercream is the best option. Not so exotic bananas go well with chocolate icing. But the safe bet, of course, is jelly. How to make it? This will be discussed below. In the meantime, a few more words about fruits. Any variety of natural delicacies is suitable for decorating the cake. You can take fresh fruit, canned or frozen. In principle, even jam will do. After all, these are also fruits, only in processed form. Fresh strawberries can be beautifully cut into halves and covered with them on the surface of the confectionery product. Small berries - raspberries and blackberries - can be placed whole, dividing the cake into several contrasting triangular sectors. Entire compositions can be made from exotic fruits. In short, imagination is practically unlimited here.
How to make a little mouse from mastic: step-by-step instructions
For a mouse you will need yellow, green, white and pink mass. It is better to make the mouth and eyes from black beads, edible, of course. If you don't have black, then dark blue will do.
Mastic mouse
In addition, you will need tools such as a toothpick, a stack, a base mold and a knife.
Stage 1 . First we make the base. To do this, take the green mass and roll it into a 3 mm pancake. You can make a circle using a glass or glass.
Stage 2 . We make a gift. For this, yellow mastic is used. The most convenient way is to roll the ball and then turn it into a square.
Present
Next, roll out the pink mastic to 1-2 mm. Using a knife, cut into several strips. These will be gift ribbons. You will also need to tie a bow from them.
From what remains, make peas with a mold. They should not exceed 1-1.5 mm in diameter. Use a stack or a toothpick to secure them to the gift.
Stage 3 . Let's make a mouse. For the body we use white mastic. The body is made in the form of a drop. Use a toothpick to mark stripes for the fingers.
Mouse
- Now place toothpicks on both sides. Half pieces are suitable for the paws because they are small in size. We fasten the body and legs so that one is like a base and the other is in the air.
- We roll the ball onto the head and make a small notch a little below the center. Next we also cut out the mouth and eyes. Insert black beads and make a nose out of pink fondant.
- After this, we take two more small pieces and sculpt the ears. First we roll the balls, and then we make indentations in them. Flatten them well and remove the bottom part. Now attach them to your head.
Making the head
- The head is ready and now place it on the body. Again, use a toothpick to join.
- We make the upper legs like the lower ones, but only a little smaller. For the tail we roll a thin sausage, but it should become thinner towards one edge.
Stage 4 . Flower. The stem for the flower will be green. Its size is slightly larger than the height of a mouse.
- We make the bud pink. If you don’t want to bother making your own, you can use beautiful petal molds and then create a flower.
- Make indentations on the petals with a stack, and use a yellow piece for the middle. Now pin everything together and make a small green leaf.
Making a Birthday Cake
Most pastry chefs do not understand this game at all, so ordering a cake from a pastry shop will not only be expensive, but also quite difficult. If you really want to please your baby, then try to decorate the cake yourself.
To do this you will need dyes for mastic and the ability to create tones.
By the way, the main cost of the cake will depend most on the quantity and cost of paint.
How to create a playing field, or rather the main layer of mastic for covering the cakes?
Look at the image of the game on your baby's screen - gray, green and brown tones predominate there.
Choose a basic background, then use dyes to create several different color shades.
Roll out the flagella and go over them with a rolling pin, and then you will need to make even stripes.
Roll out the mastic sheet to the required size, and then lay out the blanks crosswise.
You should end up with even squares. You can use a ruler or a centimeter to create it correctly.
When the entire field looks like an incomprehensible color of madness, but the squares on it are even, you need to once again roll out the resulting tight material and cover the cake with it. What happens next will depend on your skill, since the figures are also like cubes, it won’t be very difficult to fashion them from scraps of dough in butter cream. Even the trees look like cubes, so you just need to take a good look at the characters of the birthday boy.
Now we need to understand how and where to place the figures - the good characters should stand next to the image of the baby’s game character, and the monsters should be placed on the other side of the cake.
Absolutely all animals and monsters, as well as friends, look like sets of small cubes, so making figures will not be very difficult.
If you do not want to spoil the teeth of your offspring, then it would be better not to sculpt character figures from a single piece of mastic, but to cover parts made from scraps of dough with it.
Now you place the figures on the surface, make a festive inscription and present the cake to the birthday person.
Any child, of course, will retell all the intricacies in his favorite cartoons, and will retell the series about Batman in full, but you will surprise him with a gift in the form of his favorite toy much more than creating decorations in the form of all sorts of luntiks and fixies.
Also, this cake can be presented even to an adult and he will not be offended, since most young people are happy to build cities, dismantle stones and make furniture.
So decorating a cake in the shape of your favorite computer game will be an ideal gift for the player.
How to make a lion cub from mastic: step-by-step instructions
Lion cub
For the lion cub you will need yellow, white, brown and black mastic.
Stage 1 . Make a ball for the head, and the body will be teardrop-shaped.
- We also need to make white inserts for the body. They are also made like droplets.
Head and torso
- Make a mouth out of white fondant and spread the fondant in a stack for a better look.
- All that remains is to make the eyes and sculpt round shapes near the mouth.
Stage 2 . The paws will be two-colored - white and yellow. Yellow is the main color and white is used for the fingers. Don't forget to separate your fingers.
- Insert large white parts into the eye recesses, and then slightly smaller ones. At the end we put black eyes. We make the nose brown in the shape of a triangle.
Making a lion
- Finally, mold the ears in the form of flattened circles, and there is also a tail missing. It is made in the shape of a sausage, and there will be a brown brush at the tip.
Stage 3 . The mane will also be brown. You need to make it with petals and then secure them around your head.
- If you haven’t run out of white mastic, use it to make pebbles for the lion. It turns out that he seems to be sitting on them. And from green you can make grass.
How to make a panda from mastic: step-by-step instructions
The panda is made from white and black fondant, you don't need any other colors.
Mastic panda
Stage 1 . Make a small ball - this will be the head. We make slits in it for the eyes and immediately roll out black balls for them. If necessary, the recesses can be expanded with a stack. They must be completely closed.
Making the head
- All that remains is to finish the nose - roll it out of black mastic too and make a couple of holes.
Stage 2 . From small pieces we roll out eyes and ears.
- The body has two parts. The first is made from white and a round blank, and the second is elongated and black. Fastening is done with toothpicks.
Eyes and ears
Stage 3 . The paws are made in the form of droplets of black mastic. You can also make pads on them, but in white.
Which mastic should a novice master choose?
Modeling decorations from mastic with your own hands can be quite a difficult task for novice craftsmen. Therefore, at first, to improve your skills more easily and quickly, you should opt for purchased rather than homemade mastic. The first one is more expensive. But to create flowers and figures you need to gain a certain skill, which is much easier to do with purchased mastic. In stores you can find a wide variety of manufacturing companies, and the price of the product will vary from this. Russian brands can be found for 250 rubles/kg, imported ones (Italy, Sweden) – 500 rubles/kg. For a novice master, I would like to recommend mastic for modeling. It is universal, suitable for covering a cake, and for creating figures and not very complex colors.
How to make an airplane out of mastic: step-by-step instructions
Airplane made of mastic
To make an airplane, you need to prepare blue and white mastic. Don't forget about additional tools.
Stage 1 . Make a white body of the airplane; it will look a little like a trapezoid. We sculpt the front glass from blue mastic and attach it to the front.
Stage 2 . Now let's make the wings. To do this, take a couple of balls, roll them out or knead them. Make the wings in the form of triangles. We make the tail a little thinner and also like a trapezoid.
Stage 3 . Now make blue stripes on all parts of the airplane.
Stage 4 . Next we sculpt black and white eyes. The mouth can be drawn with a toothpick or a stack.
How to use mastic for modeling: useful tips
Sometimes it happens that even if you follow the instructions, not everything works out as it should. Each craftswoman has some secrets to make modeling more effective:
- In some situations, it is very difficult to completely cover a cake with fondant in a neat manner. Folds appear on the sides, which can ruin the whole job. You can solve the problem if you roll it out so that you get a small margin.
- After this, the mastic is laid out on the cake and its weight forces it to lie correctly.
- The black dye is considered very rare. To remedy the situation, you can take three colors - blue, yellow and red. They are mixed in a ratio of 2:1:1. You can also try adding blue dye to brown paint.
To obtain a shiny mastic, lubricate the surface with vodka and honey. Both components are added in the same quantity. The resulting liquid lubricates the surface and after drying it becomes shiny.
Whipped cream
This is also a good way to decorate a homemade cake. In principle, you can buy a can of ready-made whipped cream, but this is too banal. It’s better to make your own whipped cream, especially since it’s not at all difficult. To do this you need to take:
- cream (fat content not less than 30%) – 0.5 l.
The trick to whipping cream is its temperature. For everything to work out, the dairy product must be cooled for 4-5 hours in the refrigerator. The container in which the cream will be whipped and the whisk with which this process will be carried out should also be cold. Speaking of capacity. It is better to take a larger bowl for whipping, since the cream will significantly increase in volume as you work on it. Now about the process itself. The product must be beaten at the lowest speed for the first minute, and then it can be increased. The whole action should take 7-8 minutes. There is no need to whip longer, as this may cause the cream to lose all its airiness. The classic version of whipped cream can be modified. For example, before whipping, you can dissolve sugar or powdered sugar in a dairy product (the latter is preferable). Vanillin or vanilla sugar will give whipped cream a pleasant aroma. You can add any food coloring to the cream. Then the finished cream will become colored. Some sources suggest adding gelatin to it. However, you shouldn't do this. Whipped cream holds its shape perfectly, but it needs to be placed on a slightly sticky surface. Otherwise, the decoration may “slip”. And working with whipped cream is just as easy as working with cream. Especially if you have a pastry syringe in the kitchen. But unlike desserts with cream, it is advisable to eat a cake with whipped cream right away. They still don't hold their shape that well.
