Recently, it has become fashionable to decorate holiday cakes with special culinary mastic. Flowers, fruits, figurines of people and animals are molded from it, whole compositions are created. Looking at the sweet works of art, it seems that only a professional pastry chef can create this. However, you can make culinary mastic yourself and use it to design a cake.
Jelly Bean
The easiest way is to use gummies like Mamba as mastic. They must be removed from the packaging and heated slightly in a water bath or placed in the microwave for a few seconds. Warm candies become very elastic and easy to mold. Small decorations can be made from such mastic. You should not cover the whole cake with it, as the frozen candies taste more like chewing gum.
Milk mastic
Another simple mastic recipe is based on milk. Mix equal parts powdered milk or cream, condensed milk and commercially available powdered sugar. If you made the powder yourself, add a little potato starch to it. Pour a little lemon juice and food coloring of the desired color into the resulting mixture. Knead everything until a soft elastic mass is obtained. Add more powdered sugar if needed. Just do not overdo it, otherwise the mastic will not turn out to be elastic. Wrap the mixture in plastic and leave in the refrigerator for half an hour. After that, you can sculpt sweet masterpieces from it.
Marshmallow
Soft chewy marshmallows can also make a great base for mastic. Melt about 50 g of white marshmallows in a water bath or microwave. Combine the resulting mass with food coloring and 200 g of very fine powdered sugar. Knead everything into a homogeneous elastic mass. The mastic is ready.
Gelatinous mastic
Soak a bag of gelatin in 10 tbsp. l. cold water for an hour. Then heat the mixture in a water bath without boiling. After that, let the gelatin cool, but do not harden. Now pour the powdered sugar into the mixture in small portions, knead thoroughly until you get a homogeneous mass, similar to plasticine. Typically, 10 tablespoons of water takes about a kilogram of sugar. To give the mastic the desired color, food coloring can be added to it during the mixing process.
Do not decorate a cake soaked in moist cream with mastic. Since, in contact with moisture, the mass loses its shape and dissolves. It is better to use butter or protein cream for the cakes. At the same time, it must be applied in advance so that the cream has time to harden before you decorate it with mastic products.
You can store the mastic in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks, and in the freezer for up to 2 months, wrapped in plastic wrap. The finished mastic figures must first be dried at room temperature or under a stream of not hot air. They are stored in a tightly closed box for 2-3 months.
