What?!! It’s true! There is a brand new time-saving way to create messages on cakes – Flexabets!

To be honest, I don't like messages on cakes at all... But I know that's not realistic when creating cakes for customers. They need Aunt Francine to know it's her birthday! But, you know what really frustrates me?! When a beautiful cake is finished off with a sloppily piped message. Why???  Oy it’s painful to look at… Maybe it’s because the artist was rushing, or maybe an intern finished it off, or perhaps your hand is falling off like mine, and you just can’t pipe anymore!

There are obviously other solutions…many of which I personally use often - especially if I have interns or other less experienced artists working on the cake. For instance, I like to make plaques and either paint, or write a message with an edible marker.  Or sometimes, we use fondant letter cutters. But I find that the fonts for the alphabet cutters are limited, they are so annoyingly time consuming…and don’t even come out that well. So usually, what happens is that I resort to hand cutting wording with nothing but an exacto knife and a dream.

So this leads me to write this post…because this new product is pretty darn cool. Flexabets sort of eliminate the problems…no cutters, no exacto knives, no messy handwriting! When I first got them I shoved some fondant in there right away to see the result! It took a gentle hand, but pop - out came the letters with little fuss.

WHAT ARE FLEXABETS?

Flexabets are silicone onlay mats with the silicone cutting blades configured into the shape of letters and numbers. They are  made from non-stick silicone so you get a perfect letter or number every time.  All you have to do is press rolled out fondant  onto a Flexabet with a fondant smoother.  I especially love the "Happy Birthday" message because it can be attached to a cake or plaque just like any other silicone onlay mat.  These plaques can even be made ahead of time for quick decorating for a retail bakery.

It's recommended to use a little tylose in your fondant to help the fondant retain it's shape. TIP: I found throwing the whole thing into the freezer for a few minutes really helped the letters pop out cleanly... especially if your fondant is soft and you don't have any tylose.

CREATIVE WAYS TO USE THE FLEXABETS MOLD

There are several types of mediums you can use with this mold - here are a few we experimented with!

FONDANT

So originally, I planned on just creating a few cute cakes using the Flexabet molds.  So I started by putting some brown fondant into one of the "Happy Birthday" message molds and added it to the top of a wood paneled cake. The result was fast, clean and looked better and more professional than piping would have!

Neat, clean, no fuss, no skill necessary – and looks like part of the overall cake design!

Well of course we all like playing with new toys….so of course…..I then proceeded to smush everything we could find into this mold to see what would happen! I quickly abandoned fondant, as I already knew that was a no-brainer!

WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE THIS:

• Typewritter Happy Birthday Flexabet Mold
• Satin Ice Chocolate fondant
• Satin Ice White fondant

Modeling Chocolate

Next up, was modeling chocolate.  Modeling chocolate is widely used by many cake artists because it's easy to make, relatively inexpensive and is very flexible and forgiving.  It can be made any color - so it's uses are really endless!

We tried it out and added some calligraphy letters to the tops of Chocolate Covered Oreos. We love this for a wedding favor - especially since Calligraphy is so popular right now! The modeling chocolate worked so well with the molds - I think honestly it was even easier than fondant!  And they don't break at all when popping them out even if overly aggressive 🙂

Super easy to use because of its natural flexibility. The modeling chocolate can be dyed any color and can be used on chocolate, buttercream, fondant, etc. You can even cut these out ahead of time and cover them with plastic wrap. Oh and these are some tasty letters...

WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE THIS:

• Calligraphy font Mold
• White Modeling Chocolate
• Chocolate covered Oreos

As a lot of artists do, I like to use all different mediums when cake decorating.  We often use Cake Lace to create lace, fishnet, etc.  It seemed like an obvious choice for the Flexabet molds.

Cake Lace

This was a very easy application!  We just spread the cake lace into the molds and let them dry.  You can throw them in the dehydrator if you'd like to speed up the process. Then we attached them to lace we also made from Cake Lace.  The result - is a pretty, delicate look that really couldn't be achieved any other way!

Well because now I was excited, I thought...hmmm what else can we make with these molds. And since we really needed an excuse to make homemade gummies..... of course it seemed apropos for gummies to be the next medium we tried for the Flexabet molds.

WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE THIS:

• Type set letters mold
• Cake Lace

Homemade Gummy Letters!

Gummy letters? What? I love gummy bears, worms, really any animal made out of gummy!

So we decided to make a quick homemade gummy recipe. But you could also just melt down some gummy bears! Just pour warm gummy into the mold, spread using a palette knife and let it set. I think it’s such a cute way to incorporate a message – and delicious too 🙂 How adorable would this be on a candy table?! (As an aside, for more creative inspiration check out our 15 favorite dessert table ideas which also includes a fun candy table spread)

WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE THIS:

• Happy Birthday Type Mold
• Happy Birthday Whimsical Mold
• Gummy!

Marvelous Molds Brick Onlay Mat

Ice Letters

So at this point, the day was coming to an end...and it seemed clear that I just completely abandoned cake all together.  I thought about my next favorite thing after cake....(and the fact that it was approaching Happy Hour)...cocktails 🙂  Everyone is all about personalized and custom cocktails right now!  So I thought.....well why couldn't we make tiny Flexabet Ice cubes for your favorite beverage?

A giant custom ice cube perfect for a punch bowl!

Yep... ice ice baby. I mean how freaking cute? You can monogram your cocktails, punch bowls…. Or leave someone a secret message that will self destruct 🙂 I just put some colored water into a squeeze bottle, poured it into the molds and it froze in just about 10 minutes! You can prep them ahead and leave all your letters in the freezer! I then added the letters on tops of ice cubes. They stuck right on and that was it!  Disclaimer - the more food color you add to the water, the quicker they will melt!

My favorite application of the molds - a monogrammed cocktail!

So as you can see, there are a lot of things you can put into these molds.....And honestly, if I had more free time, I would have tried a few more!

I am not going to lie, I did try melting Jolly Ranchers...but my patience level was just not there - so I abandoned the idea all together after I popped out like 3 letters.  But if you are a really patient person, unlike me..I'm sure you would find success here.

WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE THIS:

• Type set font lower case and uppercase
• Water
• Food Coloring
• A freezer 🙂

The Bottom Line

So in summation, I don't have a lot of patience for these things. I'm busy just like the next person...so if there's not instant gratification, I often toss the tool in a box and go about my way.  But there was a lot of instant gratification going on here! I'm also very excited to make some cute cake designs with these molds.  I think the possibilities are endless really!  I encourage you to do the same...and if you don't want to make a cake, make a cocktail 🙂

Also, if you are interesting in learning more about custom lettering, check out our review of Nicholas Lodge's Custom Lettering and Monogram class on craftsy!

Note: I did receive this product to try out and do receive small compensation if you were to support us and buy the product through the links in this article. As with any product we review at Pink Cake Box University, we only post about products that we feel are worthy of your hard earned money. If your experience is different than ours, please let us know!