Fondant fabric techniques have become brilliantly  popular in the past few years and ruching is no exception. Ruching is a French term which means to gather, ruffle, or pleat; the term is a sewing technique in which fabric or ribbon is gathered in a repeating pattern to form ruffles, scallops, or petals. Ruching also happens to be an extremely fun technique to recreate with fondant. I have designed  two separate ruching techniques that resembles Haute-Couture dresses, and both approaches can be created on cakes and cupcakes as well.

This past weekend Sydney was surfing on Pinterest and found several dresses she liked that had ruching. She and I decided to mimic one of the dresses with our sugar cookies. This method is a great way to recreate your fashion inspired ideas with fondant.

Fondant Designer Ruching:

Equipment:

• Dresden tool, FMM
• Celstick, Celcakes
• Celpin medium & smal, Celcake
• Mini fondant rolling pin
• Fondant smoother
• Foam pad
• Ribbon cutter, FMM
• Stay fresh mat
• Artist brushes
• Fine sharp scissors
• Small utility brush
• Pasta machine, optional

Material:

• Sugar Cookie, shaped in a dress
• Blue Shimmer petal dust, Blossom Art
• Fondant, Breakfast Blue or color of choice, Fondarific
• Breakfast Blue Paste, Chefrubber
• Sugar paste/gumpaste, white Fondarific
• Vodka
• Plain clear dragees
• Clear piping gel, CK products
• Small bowl of water
• Royal icing

Color your fondant and place in a plastic bag.

Prepare your mise en place.

Once your sugar cookie dresses are cooled, brush your sugar cookies with clear piping gel (lightly brush). Roll your coloured fondant out to # 0 through a pasta machine, using the dress sugar cookie cutter cut the fondant out, dust with blue shimmer petal dust. Place on top of sugar cookies, and smooth out the fondant to adhere to the sugar cookie with fondant smoothers.

This process is done for both cookies.

Mermaid Sugar Cookie Dress:

While fondant is still pliable use your dresden tool to draw lines of ruching, if you look at ruching on a dress it tends to go in different directions. You most likely will need to re dust the fondant.

Set aside.

Mix your breakfast blue fondant with white gumpaste/sugar paste, known as a 50/50 mixture. Once the paste has been amalgamated roll the paste out to a #4 through the paste machine, or transparently thin. Cut three sections of the bottom of the dress with the dress cookie cutter, graduating in sizes. Place two under a stay fresh mat and place the third on a foam pad. With your medium Celpin ruffle the very bottom of the dress, and gather the ruffled pieces together without letting the fondant stick. Pinch the top and open the rest.

Attach the gathered ruffle skirt to the side of dress, where the ruching lines meet. Repeat the same method for the remaining two pieces, attach the  pieces on top of one another. Cut a small piece of thin 50/50 paste using your Celpin hollow out the piece and place over the tip of three skirts making a cap.

Mix blue shimmer dust with vodka to create a paint. Paint the ruching lines on the dress to deepen the colour, and place a clear dragee in the paint to match the color. With a soft brush dust the skirt section with the blue shimmer dust.

Once the paint is dry on the dragee pipe a little royal icing and attach to the cap.

Wait at least 4 hours to over night after fondant has been applied to the blossom dress. Mix your Breakfast Blue fondant with sugar paste/gumpaste until the paste is amalgamated. Roll the paste through a pasta machine gradually to #6, or until transparent and very thin. Cut the thinned paste into several strips, about 50 mm/2 inches on the smallest setting for the width on a ribbon cutter. Place  all the strips under a stay fresh mat. except one. Place the one strip on your foam pad and fold the strip in half lengthwise. With a small Cellpin roll the edges to close, the strip should be a little puffy. Attach the fold on the bodice of your sugar cookie on the diagonal with a little water, cut the excess with fine sharp scissors and smooth the paste’s edge against the fondant.

Continue to slightly layer the folds on dresses about 2/3 of the way down (leaving one fold out), and frill the remaining strips from the bottom of the skirt to the where the folds ends. Attach the frills 1/3 up from the bottom. Attach the final fold over the tip of highest ruffle.

Dust the ruching folds and the ruffles with blue shimmer.

Assembly: 

Cover a elegant square sugar cookie with fondant, we used mocha flavor. Wait at least four hours before piping royal icing on the bottom of the sugar cookie ruching dress and attach to the elegant square. Hold the dresss cookie until it stands on its own.

If you like to share your creative fondant ruching that would be awesome!

Enjoy!