Im doing a buttercream cake and i plan on putting little fondant shapes on it for decoration. I bought the already made white fondant. Ive never used it before. Whats the best way to color it? Do i just place it on the cake right away or do i need to lay it out to dry or bake it first? Thanks in advance for any replies!

I am a newbie too, but from what I've learned here...

1st - color your fondant by using a tooth pick dipped into your color, wipe it on the fondant and knead...repeat until you reach the color you want...using a new tooth pick each time.

2nd - you can place the decor on the cake as soon as you ice it if they are going to lay down on the cake. If they are to stand up on the cake let them dry for about 24 hours.

you dont want to bake your fondant...you can speed the drying by placing it under a light bulb but that is it.

Like I said I am a newbie too, but I hope I helped.
good luck and keep asking questions, the people here are great and will help all they can. They have taught me alot.
Polly

thanks so much for replying, that helps a lot! can i make my fondant ahead of time? The cake is for sunday so if i made them say tomorrow and let it harden, will it go bad?

They won't go bad but you don't really want to cut them out ahead of time and let them dry because you may have problems getting them to stick to your buttercream. If I understand correctly, you are only using the fondant as accents. Just cut them out the day you decorate your cake. Also, you should really look at some recipes for fondant or the marshmallow fondant (which is easy to make) here on the site, they taste so much better than Wilton fondant. If you are putting that much effort into it, you'll want the whole cake to taste good. Good luck, let us know how it turns out.

I was just in Wiltons Course 3 Fondant class and we did fondant cut out shapes and attached them the same night but it also depends on what type of accents/shapes they are. For the roses we had to let the center piece dry for atleast 24 hours before attaching the petals, for bows we just let them dry long enough to take the shape we wanted and with flat pieces we put them on pretty much right away.

P.S. We also added 1 tsp of gum-tex to 12 oz of fondant and I'm not 100% sure but I think the instructor said it was to help dry the fondant faster (could be my memory playing tricks with me though....)

HTH

Fondant will get hard, but I can't imagine it "going bad" -- especially the prepackaged Wilton stuff, after tasting it!

Ohh, and another thing whatever fondant your not going to use wrap it up tightly in saran wrap and then put it in air tight container or zip lock bags otherwise it will dry up on you. Also when you are working with your fondant and doing something like a rose that has several steps and pieces of fondant (and you are slow like me )cover up the piece you are not using so they don't dry out on you before you get to them.

ok so i looked at the marshmallow recipes. Which one is better? marshmallow fluff or real marshmallows? Does it harden as wiltons fondant does? Im really nervous!

I am fairly new to fondant... only used it a few times. But I have made the MMF and i use Rhonda's Ulitmate MMF recipe... Heres the link

Rhonda's Ultimate MMF

It is very good and easy to make.. i haven't had it turn out badly. It is soft the day you make it but you let it sit overnight and it firms up. I always end up kneading in a little extra icing sugar.

HTH.

Edited to add: Always use real marshmellows... Im pretty sure the fluff doesn't work.

xstitcher said:..... whatever fondant your not going to use wrap it up tightly in saran wrap and then put it in air tight container or zip lock bags otherwise it will dry up on you.....when working with your fondant...doing something like a rose that has several steps and pieces of fondant (and you are slow like me) cover up the piece you are not using so they don't dry out on you .......

Alwasy cover any not-being-used fondant (no matter which recipe you use) well with plastic wrap. Any leftover, like she said, should be wrapped in several layers of plastic wrap, then into a ziploc bag, then in the mylar bag it came in, then into an air-tight container. I know this sounds like overkill, but it will make it last longer which is especially important if you don't use it often.