Recently it became fashionable to decorate festive cakes with special culinary mastic. From it mold flowers, fruit, figures of people and animals, create the whole compositions. Looking at sweet works of art, apparently, that only the professional confectioner can create it. However it is possible to make culinary mastic most and to issue cake with its help.
Chewing sweets
The easiest way is to use as mastic a chewing sweets like Mamba. They need to be saved from packing and to heat on a water bath a little or to put for several seconds in the microwave oven. Warm candies become very elastic and easily give in to a molding. It is possible to make small jewelry of such mastic. You shouldn't cover with it all cake as the stiffened candies one taste bigger remind chewing gum.
Dairy mastic
One more simple recipe of mastic – on the basis of milk. Mix powdered milk or cream, condensed milk and store icing sugar in equal shares. If you made powder, add to it a little potato starch. In the received mix pour a little lemon juice and food color of right color. Knead everything before obtaining soft elastic weight. If necessary it is possible to add still some icing sugar. Only don't go too far, otherwise mastic will turn out not elastic. Wrap up weight in polyethylene and leave for half an hour in the fridge. After that from it it is possible to mold sweet masterpieces.
Marshmallow
Soft chewing marshmallows of a marshmallow can also become an excellent basis for mastic. Melt about 50 g of a white marshmallow on a water bath or in the microwave oven. Connect the received weight to food color and 200 g of icing sugar of very fine crushing. Knead everything in homogeneous elastic mass. Mastic is ready.
Gelatinous mastic
Wet a bag of gelatin in 10 tablespoons of cold water for an hour. Then heat mix on a water bath, without bringing to the boil. After that let's gelatin cool down, but not to stiffen. Now in the small portions pour icing sugar into mix, carefully knead, the homogeneous mass similar to plasticine won't turn out yet. As a rule, on 10 spoons of water about a kilogram of sugar leaves. For giving to mastic of right color, in the course of mixing it is possible to add food color to it. You shouldn't decorate with mastic the cake soaked with damp cream. As, adjoining to moisture, weight gets out of a shape and is dissolved. Better for cake layers to use buttered or proteinaceous cream. At the same time it is necessary to apply it in advance that cream managed to stiffen before you decorate it with products from mastic. It is possible to store mastic in the fridge up to 2 weeks, and in the freezer – up to 2 months, having inwrapped in food wrap. Ready figures from mastic need to be dried up at first at the room temperature or under a stream not of hot air. They are stored in densely closed box by 2-3 months.