Mastic cakes are unique masterpieces that any housewife can prepare at home. Having a little knowledge about the mastic itself and about the technology of its production, it is quite possible to make a very beautiful cake without much effort and money.
A festive feast is not complete without a culmination, and, as a rule, a cake serves as such a culmination. Ordinary "masterpieces" that are "gathering dust" on the shelves of supermarkets no longer attract anyone, something more interesting is needed for the holiday. Now there are many different ways to decorate confectionery, not only on an industrial scale, but also on the scale of an ordinary kitchen. One of the most original is mastic.
Mastic is a confectionery term for a special plastic paste designed for decorating cakes, pastries, gingerbread and other sweets. By its consistency, it resembles plasticine, it is completely safe and edible, respectively, absolutely any figures can be sculpted from it and then eaten.
It is convenient to use, does not crumble, hardens well, “fits” on almost any type of creams. By itself, it can be either white or in various shades, it is tinted, as a rule, with ordinary food colors or juice of natural fruits and vegetables.
What you need to know about mastic paste
The choice must be approached thoroughly, since this is half the battle. There is a ready-made mastic that can be applied immediately to the workpieces. But the color scheme of the finished product does not differ in variety, so many make mastic right at home.
Homemade mastic paste can be tinted in any color. It is stored for several weeks in the refrigerator, but before use it is better to let it lie down for a while at room temperature.
What is the best mastic to use for decorating a cake at home?
The most popular is mastic marshmallow paste. Marshmallows, or as confectioners affectionately call them "marmyshki", are sold in any supermarket. These are small airy marshmallows. The marshmallows are melted in the microwave, powdered sugar, citric acid and, depending on the recipe, some other ingredients are added. Further, all this is kneaded like an ordinary dough, during the kneading process it will be seen how the mass acquires an amazing similarity to plasticine, becomes soft, elastic and pliable. After 10-15 minutes of kneading, figures can already be sculpted from this mass.
But experienced housewives know that, although it is very convenient to use this method, it is too expensive. Lack of funds sometimes leads to new discoveries, this also applies to cooking. Dozens of different recipes for making plastic pasta are now known, the simplest of them is from infant formula or milk powder. This requires the following products:
- baby dry mixture ("Baby", "Nan", "Nistozhen" or any other will do), instead of a mixture, you can use powdered milk;
- lemon juice;
- condensed milk;
- icing sugar.
This is a fairly economical option, and by its consistency it is quite elastic and it is very convenient to sculpt from it.
Decorating a cake with mastic at home is not a difficult procedure at all, it is only important to have patience, accuracy, after some trials, decorating will turn not into a complex procedure, but into a real work of a sculptor.
Figures from mastic and other decorations
White paste is most often used to cover the finished product, it also serves as a background and "field" for further creations. Due to the plastic consistency, you can sculpt completely different figures from mastic. At the initial stage, this may seem like a rather painstaking and difficult task, but over time everything will turn out much faster. The network has a lot of master classes and technologies for decorating mastic products.
It is a pleasure to decorate a children's cake with mastic. Here your imagination is limitless. An excellent option would be the execution of a curly cake, for example, in the form of a toy car for a boy or in the form of a doll for a girl. The desired figure is cut out of the cakes, and then mastic paste is used, which covers the "frame", and various decorations are made from other colors. So you can decorate an ordinary children's cake with figures of cartoon characters. Such a cake is always bright, memorable, children will definitely like it.
A set of simple tools will help you beautifully decorate the cake with mastic. In pastry shops, special shovels, knives and embossing are given for working with such a paste. It is quite possible for beginners to get by with improvised means. An ordinary construction trowel is very suitable as a leveling knife, patterns can be made using ordinary kitchen utensils: spoons, forks, sushi sticks.
There is nothing difficult in working with mastic, especially in the age of the Internet, where you can find any recipes and any technologies. The most important thing in this business is patience. Decorating confectionery with mastic paste is more like the work of a sculptor, this activity is very exciting in itself, and in the end you get real masterpieces. This hobby, by the way, can bring good income if you decide to do it professionally.
