Crayons

First, you’ll need to gather your resources! So, rummage through your goodies and accumulate your loot! Here you go:

A clay extruder (we used the Makin’s Professional Clay Extruder) with the largest circle disk
Fondant in all of your favorite colors! Now, if you grab your trusty set of real crayons, take a look at them. Do you notice that those pesky wrappers are actually a different color than the crayon? Yeah, I sighed too. So–make sure when you grab your red fondant, take a bit of it and mix in some white fondant to get a slightly lighter color for the wrapper (and do this for each main color you are using!).
A flat, non-stick surface to roll out your fondant
Non-stick rolling pin
Knife or other sharp edge for cutting fondant (you could use a pizza wheel)
Palette knife
Black food color marker (we used Americolor Gourmet Writers)
Petal pad or other porous material that you can lay the crayons on to dry

A real crayon for comparison, extruder, fondant and disks

Get ready for some extruder action!

So once your supplies are gathered, knead your fondant (the darker color) until pliable and then load it up in the extruder.

Force the fondant through the extruder until you have just over three inches of fondant tubing. Trim off any extra.

Extruded tube cut to size

Extruded tube cut to size

Put down your extruder and carefully place pressure on one end of the fondant tube. With the pressure and a rolling motion, you will create a cone shape on one end. If your tip gets a point at the end, take your finger and push it in–real crayons have a flat tip to them.

Next, take the lighter shade of red and roll out a small chunk of it really, really thin.
Fondant crayon without the wrapper

Fondant crayon without the wrapper

(No–I didn’t use any cornstarch or confectioner’s sugar, but please do if your fondant is sticking!)

Use your sharp edge to cut the rolled fondant into a rectangle. Make sure to measure the rectangle out before cutting it by placing the crayon you’ve created next to it. Insure the rectangle is not too wide–leave room at both ends so the crayon peaks out from the wrapper.
Cut wrapper

The wrapper’s ready to be put on!

Use your palette knife to gently release the top edge of the fondant. Then place the crayon you created on the wrapper and gently roll the crayon in the wrapper. Trim the edge if necessary. As we haven’t used any dust to prevent sticking, the wrapper should stick to the crayon without any water or sugar glue. If your fondant it too dry to stick, use a touch of water–brushed on very lightly to get it to stick to itself.

At this point we went on to making more crayons (repeating the above steps) to let the old ones set up and harden before finishing their details. So please do the same if you’re making a bunch of crayons!

When the crayons with wrappers have set up, continue to the next steps!

Get your edible food coloring marker ready and let’s add some details!!
Crayon prep

We’re ready to mark up the crayon!

Take the edible marker and draw lines on the crayon’s wrapper, filling them in with the black marker to create the waves. Write the crayon color on the wrapper as well.
Which one is the sugar crayon?

Which crayon would you rather eat?

Lay your completed crayons on a soft porous surface to let them dry.
Drying the crayons

The crayons are left to set up and dry before placing on the cake.

After 12 or so hours (depending on humidity), these should be easy to handle–pick one up!

It really feels like a crayon

If you need more details, check it out: http://kallicakes.wordpress.com/