Sticking Decorations To Fondant – Edible Glue Recipes

Recipe 1 – Mix the below ingriedents together.

• 1/4 cup warm water
• Marble-sized ball of gum paste or fondant

Recipe 2 – Mix the below ingriedents together.

• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1/2 tsp. tylose powder

Cutting Fondant

Please use a fondant cutting wheel when cutting fondant to stop the fondant from tearing when using a standard knife. There will be times where you are forced to use a small scalpel knife to clean up spaces the cutting wheel cannot get too. A small pizza cutter will do the job too.

Non Stick Mat

A non stick mat will reduce the effort and cleanup when rolling fondant. A non stick mat does not require cornstarch or icing sugar to produce a non stick surface. This means less clean up. It is a good idea to buy two non stick mats. One for rolling fondant for covering cakes and one for decorations, as your cutting wheel, knife and cookie cutters will mark up the mat over time, resulting in marks on the fondant if used for rolling fondant for cake covering.

Modelling With Fondant & Gum Paste

Always let your fondant or gum paste models harden lying down, before placing on a cake. This is especially important for those models that are fighting gravity. Fondant placed straight on top of a cake too soon, will bend, move or even break, if not hard enough. This means create your decorations the day before for optimal strength. Gum Paste is your best bet for creating decorations and fondant is best used for covering cakes.

Make or Buy Fondant

Fondant can be purchased pre coloured from the store and lasts a very long time if wrapped in plastic and kept air tight. You can make your own fondant from recipes on the Internet using marshmallows etc.

I have done this from time to time but the store purchased fondant is usually spot on and very easy to work with. Always use a concentrated liquid gel dye if you are colouring your own fondant. Standard food colouring is not concentrated enough and will not produce a nice solid rich colour.

Colouring Fondant

When colouring fondant, it is best to use a concentrated liquid gel dye compared to the traditional food colouring, you have used in the past. The concentrated liquid gel dye provides a perfect solid colour and will not produce a tie-dyed faded colour effect the traditional food colouring does. I’m not a promoter of Wilton but do use their products allot.

Covering Cake With Fondant

Make sure you have your non stick mat ready to go and you have created an even icing surface on top and around the cake sides. Fondant is not forgiving and will show every imperfection of the cake.

Measure the side height of the cake and multiple by two, plus the diameter of the cake top to give your diameter of fondant you need to roll. Of course you will need to add one to two inches extra to help with any corrections.

The thickness should be around 1/8 inches. I like mine on the thicker side, as I can stretch it better to get any folds out and it minimizes the chance of tearing.

A fondant rolling pin and non stick mat is a must and will prevent the fondant from sticking. Once rolled out to the desired size, you can drape it over the rolling pin or pick up the non stick mat and flip it over on top of the cake and peel back the non stick mat off the cake. Take your time and do not rush this.

You will then need to smooth out the top of the cake and smooth out the sides. Don’t be afraid to lift up the fondant from the sides of the cake to help stretch it out and prevent folds. As you move around the cake it will be more challenging to keep the sides from folding. Keep stretching out the fondant and smooth the sides until done.