Fondant Owl Cake Topper Tutorial

 My head is overflowing with cookie and cupcake classes at the moment. I'm working on all the next few themes simultaneously.
So my dining room table is scattered with works-in-progress: black cat and pumpkin Halloween cupcakes; "fabric" flowers for the Vintage cupcake class, and animal print cookies for the Jungle Fever class. There are ghosts and mummies (cookies) in my freezer; and Father Christmas, Rudolph, wreaths and snowflakes waiting to be decorated in tupperware in the kitchen.
And then a few other non-theme cookies that I just randomly had the desire to decorate this week.

So, I thought I'd just throw something else into the mix:
A fondant  owl cake topper. The little hedgehog we made a while ago needed a woodland friend...
I made both for a friend's baby shower cake a few months ago, and she's been in my thoughts this whole week - so, this one is for you Colleen. Wishing you a speedy recovery : )

The owl is a simple character to do, and you really don't need a lot of fancy tools. I've used fondant tools because I've got them, but I'll tell you what you can do as an alternative:

What you need:

A small ball of fondant (just smaller than a golf ball) in your main colour - pink in this case
A smaller one in another colour - brown here
A marble sized ball of fondant in orange
And an even smaller ball of white fondant.
Tylose powder
Tylose glue
Holsum (white vegetable fat) or corn flour
A knife
A roller
A toothpick or  kebab stick
A short piece of dry spaghetti
Black sprinkles
A small heart cutter
(Handy - but not essential - small flower cutter, small round cutters, stitching tool, "feathering" tool)

Start with the pink fondant...

(Keep all the other balls of fondant covered in plastic to prevent them drying out.)

Add a small amount of tylose powder - just less than 1/4 tsp - to the pink ball, and knead it in.

Separate this paste into two balls - one slightly larger than the other.

Shape the larger ball into an ovoid shape

Shape the smaller ball by pinching out the "ear" tufts using your thumb and index finger

Insert the spaghetti into the larger ball

And then put on the head

Now, add some tylose powder to the brown paste - just a little - and knead together, 

Roll it out, and cut out 3 hearts (you may need to grease your work surface with holsum, or dust with corn flour)

Texture one heart with the stitching tool, or just use the toothpick, and use a little glue to attach to the owl's body.

Texture the other two hearts, either with a fondant tool, or just use the side of the toothpick...

Attach the wings to the sides of the owl's body with some tylose glue. Curl them up slightly.

Roll out the orange paste, cut out a flower and cut in two 

Attach them with tylose glue 

(If you don't have a small flower cutter, simply make the feet by using a knife to indent claws into two small balls of orange paste.) 

Roll a small ball of paste for the beak

Make it pointy at one end

Indent the pointy end with a knife

 Make two nostrils

 And attach with tylose glue

Roll out the brown paste and the white fondant, and cut out rounds (or simple flatten small balls of each  to create the rounds of paste)

Glue the whites onto the brown

Add the black sprinkes (or wait for the paste to dry, and then draw or paint on the dots with an edible marker or black gel.)

Glue onto the owls face

Roll out a few thin strands of brown paste, and attach to the owl's head

Owl's that?

Friends...xoxo!

xxM