I’m not sure I can really call this a recipe to be honest – it involves one ingredient, and no cooking – but I didn’t want to cheat, and so for this month’s Random Recipe I give you the fondant icing elephant!

The theme for May is ‘First and Last‘. Dom at Belleau Kitchen set the challenge of randomly picking a book and then making either the very first or very last recipe.

My randomly chosen book was ‘Sugar Animals’ by Frances McNaughton, which gave me the choice of making either an elephant or a frog – both looked cute in the book but I decided to go for the elephant (sorry frog, I’m sure I’ll make you soon!)

I’m not sure mine is looking quite as cute as the one in the book, but you can definitely tell it’s an elephant so I’m calling this a success! I think my animal making skills are ever so slightly better than my people making skills…

Sugar elephant (from Sugar Animals by Frances McNaughton)

Take 80g fondant icing and add in a little food colouring – I went for a bluey-grey but elephants look good in any colour.

Split the icing in half, and roll one half into a sort of egg shape, like this:

Cut the other half of the icing into quarters – one for the head, one for the arms, and one for each of the legs.

To make the legs, roll a fat sausage shape with a point at one end and pinch it flat at the other. Use a cocktail stick to draw on 3 semi-circles for toes.

Repeat with the second leg piece, then attach to the body.

Roll the arm piece into a long thin sausage, pinch the ends flat and draw on toes as with the legs. Wrap the arms around the top of the body.

Finally, roll the head piece into a ball. Roll one end between your fingers to make a trunk, then curl it upwards. Add two nostrils with a cocktail stick and some wrinkle lines underneath. Cut a v-shape under the trunk for the mouth and poke two eye holes either side. To make the ears, pinch the icing at either side of the head and gently pull it out and flatten Attach to the body, and your elephant is good to go!