fondant lesson?

My SIL asked for my help with my niece's bday cake. She is using fondant and never has before...I haven't either, but she said she thought since I am more of a baker that I could help her figure it out!!!

I understand the concept of fondant, but what I can't wrap my head around is how you drape it over the cake and get it so smooth. I'm thinking like a table cloth, it would have extra floating around!


Any tips that i could bring to this?

Re: fondant lesson?

You can watch some videos on youtube...that's what I did the first time I used it...I'm a visual learner lol. And yes, the fondant needs to be bigger than the piece you are covering so that it overhangs and then you trim the extra off the bottom. Don't wear any rings and if you have long nails, be careful not to poke the fondant as you're smoothing it over because it's not east getting those finger nail marks out.

Re: fondant lesson?

It's not so bad, actually. It is exactly like draping an extremely delicate table cloth over a table. You will have excess. You fold the corners as best you can to get it to lay flat and then trim off the excess. Are you using pre-made fondant or making your own? If you're making your own, I highly reccommend adding a little corn starch to your recipe. It'll help keep the fondant together and, along with the powdered sugar, help keep it from sticking to your mat or roller when you're rolling it out. We also used this fondant tool kit from Michael's. It had a bunch of little cutters and stuff for it, but the tool that was really clutch was the fondant smoother. This wasn't the exact one we had, but it truly helped.

Message edited 7/18/2011 12:57:38 PM.

Re: fondant lesson?

thank you for the youtube tip...I found one and I didn't realize how stretchy it was...seems doable!

Re: fondant lesson?

One tip that I found really helpful was to place the cake on top of something that is smaller than the cake itself. Then drape the fondant over it so it hangs down a bit (try not to have too much hang, or it can rip). Then, as you smooth the fondant onto the sides of the cake, pull it out slightly from the cake towards the bottom and it should get rid of most of the lumps and bumps.
I'm not sure how clear that was....but there are a bunch of youtube videos about fondant that are really helpful!