Tlook. The best tool for making eyes for your fondant figures

The summer is finally over and, like every other September, I’m back with a lot of novelties and fondant tutorials on my blog.

This new school year it’s going to be a busy year for me, with a lot of workshops, lots of travel and the entrepreneurship of a new project which is very important to me. I can’t give you any details now, but I’ll let you know soon!

To begin with this new school year I’ve decided to make a tutorial on how to use the Tlook tool. Tlook is a creative pastry tool created by Italian cake designer  Tiziana Benvegna. My friend Margherita Ferrara, of Fashflower Cake, gave it to me at SoFlo, the famous Cake & Candy Expo in Miami.

You may wonder why we would use such a tool. The answer is simple: it’s very difficult to make a pair of identical eyes with a mirror effect if you don’t have a great ability or enough practise on modelling fondant faces. With Tlook, making identical eyes, with the same shape and angle will be accomplished in a matter of seconds.  

Besides, the Tlook tool has two sizes (large and small), in order to adapt to the size of the figurine you want to do. Inside of each eye size, you’ll find two different shapes depending on the facial expression you want to give your figure: eyes wide open for surprised, joyful or scared faces and half-closed eyes for smiling, cheerful or elegant faces. 

TO MODEL A FACE WITH SUGAR PASTE, YOU’LL NEED:

• Modelling Paste by Renshaw
• ProGel colorants: Cream, Baby Blue, Brown, and Red
• Edible glue
• Modelling tools. I just love the Sugar Shapers by Innovative Sugarworks
• Tlook tool
• 1 Cake base board (20cm diameter)
• 1 Ruler
• Sweet Stamp alphabet
• Painting brushes

STEP BY STEP

Make a sugar paste ball and dye it with Cream colorant. Then shape the ball like a really pointed teardrop to make the chin.

With a rounded, smooth tool, make a mark on the lower half of the oval. This mark is very important, as it will divide the face in two halves and will locate the eyes. 

In order to give your face harmony and subtlety, smooth the mark we did before massaging the paste gently until removing the angles. 

Once we have the eye contour created, it’s time to make the nose. In order to do so, press upwards with your finger. That way, we’ll get a nice, snub nose.

Before using the Tlook tool, you must make the eye sockets. Use a medium size ball tool to bring down the sugar paste.

Now it’s time to use the Tlook tool! Due to the size of this particular face, I’m going to use the larger size and the wide-eyed option, since I want to give the face an expression of surprise. Place the left Tlook and press until sinking it 1 mm down. You must look carefully the angle with which you’re going to press it. Turn the tool around and make the right eye. 

It’s important that the white fondant don’t rise above the eye you’ve made before, so you may have to bring the paste down a bit more. I’ve used a small, tip-rounded tool. It’s essential that the face does not deform whilst pressing. 

Make a small ball of white fondant and introduce it in the eye socket. Tap it softly in order to adapt the fondant to the shape you did before with the Tlook tool.  

In order to finish making the eyes, you must make two really small blue fondant balls and introduce them into the eye.  Press slightly. Next, you must make a black fondant ball, smaller this time, and press again. To make the eyelashes, make a fine strip with black fondant and glue it above the eye. Finish the eye by painting the iris with blue colorant dissolved in Vodka in order to give it more color and realism. 

To make the mouth, fill the cavity with dark red fondant. This dark color will give the mouth more depth. Adapt the sugar paste in the same manner you did the eyes.

In order to finish the mouth, make a tongue with light red fondant and also make the teeth. Just stretch a small piece of white fondant and cut it with an X-acto knife. Glue it on the dark red fondant. 

Make a really thin strip with brown fondant to make the eyebrows. Apply some edible glue and place them above the eyes. Cut the ends of the brows with an X-acto knife.

For the base, cover a disc of 20cm diameter of white fondant and mark the straight lines with a ruler. That way we will paint said lines more easily. 

Paint the lines with an edible marker. Be careful and stay on the lines!

To finish the design, we’ll use Sweet Stamp letters and write “Back to School”. I recommend placing the letters on the fondant and see how you’ll distribute them before printing them. Thereupon, press the letters slightly to mark them on the fondant. Paint with saturated and funny colors. 

I hope you liked my first tutorial and that you’ll find it useful. And remember, if you have any questions don’t hesitate to leave a comment below. I will answer asap!