Mastic cakes are unique masterpieces that any housewife can cook at home. Having little knowledge about the mastic itself and the technology of its manufacture, it is quite possible to make a very beautiful cake without much effort and money.
Pick your recipe
A festive feast is not complete without a climax, and, as a rule, a cake is such a climax. Ordinary "masterpieces" that "gather dust" on the shelves of supermarkets no longer attract anyone, for the holiday you need something more interesting. Now there are a lot of different ways of decorating confectionery products, 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 intended for decorating cakes, pastries, gingerbread cookies and other sweets. By its consistency, it resembles plasticine, is completely safe and edible, respectively, from it you can sculpt any figures and then eat them.
It is convenient to use, does not crumble, solidifies well, “lays down” on almost any kind of creams. By itself, it can be either white or various shades, tint it, as a rule, with ordinary food colors or the juice of natural fruits and vegetables.
What you should know about mastic paste
The choice must be approached thoroughly, as this is half the success. There is a finished mastic that can be applied immediately to the workpiece. But the color scheme of the finished one is not very diverse, so many people 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 a little at room temperature.
Which mastic is better to use to decorate the cake at home?
The most popular is marshmallow paste. Marshmallows, or as they are affectionately called confectioners "marmyshki", are sold in any supermarket. These are small sized air marshmallows. Marshmallows melt in the microwave, add icing sugar, citric acid and, depending on the recipe, some more ingredients. 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 supple. After 10-15 minutes of kneading from this mass, it is already possible to sculpt the figures.
But experienced housewives know that using this method is very convenient, but too expensive. The lack of funds sometimes leads to new discoveries, this also applies to cooking. Now dozens of different recipes for making plastic paste are known, the simplest of them is from infant formula or milk powder. The following products are needed for this:
- baby dry mix (suitable for "Baby", "Nan", "Nystogen" or any other), instead of the mixture, you can use powdered milk;
- lemon juice;
- condensed milk;
- icing sugar.
This is a fairly economical option, and by consistency it is quite elastic and it is very convenient to sculpt from it.
Decorating a cake with mastic at home is not a complicated procedure at all, it is only important to have patience and accuracy, after some trials, decorating will not turn into a complicated procedure, but into a real work of a sculptor.