Fondant covered cakes are gorgeous, but buying fondant is expensive and it often tastes awful. Making fondant is easy, far less expensive, and tastes great!
Fondant covered cakes look spectacular. The silky, perfectly smooth surface can't be beat, and the fondant can be modeled into endless shapes, allowing for tremendous creativity in cake design. It's the standard for modern wedding cakes, and is growing in popularity for birthday cakes and other event cakes because of its incredible versatility. But commercially prepared fondant is very expensive, and often has a chemical aftertaste. Happily, fondant is easy to make, and requires only a few specialty ingredients readily available from cake and craft supply stores.
Rolled Fondant Ingredients
1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
1/2 cup glucose (can substitute light corn syrup)
1 tablespoon glycerin (available from craft and cake stores)
1 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening
2 pound bag of confectioner's sugar (powdered sugar), sifted.
1 teaspoon flavoring
Pour water in a small saucepan. Shower the gelatin over the cold water so that the gelatin is evenly distributed. Don't just dump the gelatin in—problematic lumps will appear. Let gelatin soften in the water for five minutes.
In the meantime, sift the powdered sugar into a large bowl. When all sugar is sifted, make a well in the center of the sugar.
Heat the water and gelatin over gentle heat, stirring, until the gelatin is dissolved. Mix in glucose (or corn syrup) and glycerin. Add the shortening and mix until melted. Remove from heat.
Stir in any desired flavoring. Vanilla is the most common, but almond and lemon also work well. Use an artificial clear flavoring if keeping the fondant pure white is a concern.
Pour wet ingredients into the well of powdered sugar. Mix with a wooden spoon until cool enough to handle. Then use a lightly greased hand to knead the ingredients together. Knead in the bowl until most of the powdered sugar is incorporated.
Turn out on a lightly greased counter and knead until the fondant is smooth and pliable. If it feels sticky, add additional powdered sugar. If it feels too dry and doesn't feel elastic, work in a small bit of shortening.
Shape into a thick disk shape and cover with a thin coating of shortening. Wrap well in several layers of saran wrap, and place in a ziplock bag. The fondant can be used immediately, but works much better if its left to cure for at least 12 hours. The fondant will store at room temperature this way for three months, and can be frozen for up to 12 months.
Homemade fondant has essentially the same ingredients as homemade marshmallows but in slightly different quantities. MMF made with commercially available marshmallows is stickier, messier, more difficult to make, more expensive, and is more difficult to work with. Stick with the classic, basic recipe.
The copyright of the article How to Make Fondant in Baking/Decorating Cakes is owned by Nicole Wills. Permission to republish How to Make Fondant in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
We made this recipe many times, and sometimes the fondant came out perfect
and easy to work with, and other times it came out very sticky. But the
recipe and the steps were exactly the same. What would cause this? We
thought maybe the glucose mixture was too warm when we added it to the
powdered sugar in one batch, so the next batch we made sure it was cool to
the touch. And it worked, then the very next batch we did the same and it
was sticky again. HELP!
Oct 27, 2008 10:13 AM
Nicole Wills :
Moisture content can vary from bag to bag of powdered sugar. It's also
easy to measure liquids slightly differently from batch to batch if not
cooking by weight. These seemingly insignificant differences can actually
make a surprisingly big difference in the end product. If the fondant is
too sticky, just keep kneading in more powdered sugar until it feels right.
Also remember to let it rest for 24 or more hours, ideally, before working
with the fondant. It will firm up considerably while resting.
I prefer using light corn syrup over glucose in this recipe. It's much
easier to measure and scrape out of the measuring cup, and thus get more
consistent results. It's also less expensive and easier to find.
Feb 10, 2009 10:17 AM
Guest :
what type of flavoring do you suggest? I read another recipe online that
said Almond Extract? I want it to taste good..
Feb 10, 2009 11:39 AM
Nicole Wills :
Almond is an excellent flavoring, but really anything can be used. It's
best to consider the flavor of the cake and buttercream being used and
compliment those. Vanilla goes with anything.
Lorann is a good
brand of highly concentrated flavorings, and they have a huge selection.
Any homemade fondant will taste vastly better than commercial fondant;
extracts just add a little something extra.
Feb 16, 2009 2:03 PM
Guest :
Where can I find glycerin???
Feb 16, 2009 2:19 PM
Nicole Wills :
Glycerin is available from any cake decorating store, and even the cake
decorating aisle at major craft stores like Michaels and Hobby Lobby.
Jul 7, 2009 2:30 AM
Guest :
it there a simpler way to make fonant and cheaper
Jul 29, 2009 10:26 AM
Guest :
Easy Fondant Recipe:
1 cup shortening 1 cup light corn
syrup flavoring enough powdered sugar to make a stiff dough (I
think I used about 7 cups)
I used this recipe for the first time
making fondant, and it worked great! I only used a few drops of cherry
flavoring, and couldn't really taste it, but it still had a nice flavor
(unlike the store bought kind)
Jul 29, 2009 11:26 AM
Nicole Wills :
Actually, that's not a fondant recipe, it's a rolled buttercream recipe.
It's more difficult to work with (not as elastic, can't be rolled as thin
and shaped as well as fondant, always looks shiny and greasy, etc.), but it
is a nice recipe to have in your bag of tricks!
Aug 9, 2009 3:01 PM
Guest :
I am making a wedding cake that requires edible beads at random over the
cake. If I purchase the white beads will I be able to color them, if so how
would I color them a light chocolate.
Aug 12, 2009 10:23 AM
Guest :
When can I add coloring and what type of coloring do you recommend?
Aug 12, 2009 12:46 PM
Nicole Wills :
I've just posted an article on how best to color fondant. Check out
"How to Color Fondant" by clicking on my name above, and
navigating to my other articles from my profile.
Sep 17, 2009 1:53 AM
Guest :
I made a cake for my son's birthday and was so diappointed in the result
that I made something entirely different. I made the cake and covered it
with hand made buttercream frosting between the layers and coated the
outside. Then I covered it with the fondant. At first it was going well
until it started to look lumpy and I could tell that the frosting between
the layers was also causing the lumps as well. I could not get a smooth
effect. What am I doing wrong??
Oct 20, 2009 8:04 PM
Guest :
As far as the note on Marshmallow Fondant. I have found just the opposite
to be true. I find MMF SO much easier to make than the classic recipe and
think it works beautifully.
