hey all i watched a video about zebra stripes and couldnt quite understand the lady she said she never had problems with the sugar making marks on her black fondant that she just brushed it off but ive heard a couple complaints that your beautiful black turns to charchoal grey? so i guess my question is do you roll on powder sugar? cornstarch? just a mat? or do you deal with the powder residue and rub something on after?

I roll mine out with just a little bit of a 50/50 PS/CS mixture. Then I kind of dust it off and if you can still see the PS on the outside, I put a little bit of crisco on my hands and then rub it all over the fondant.

I just use a (very) thin coat of Crisco on my mat. No problems, no powdered sugar or corn starch.

I used all 3 ... PS, CS and crisco. The cornstarch wipes off with a (dedicated) kitchen towel REALLY well, but the Crisco is pretty much the best way to go, in my very short fondant experience.

I also roll on a thin film of veg shortening.

thanks all for your responses crisco it shall be

I just finished a cake with zebra stripes and am still a bit of a newbie with fondant... so just for kicks I did an experiment and rolled out my black fondant (Satin Ice) on PS, cornstarch and crisco. The first two wipe off with a little work, just a pain, and nearly impossible to get it all off of anything that's not flat. One trick I ended up doing was to take a small paint brush (clean of course) and applied a thin layer of crisco to the surface. Crisco worked well and made it more pliable and crack less, which I liked- so was my favorite of the 3.

I always use Cooking Spray Canola Oil you get in a spray can ( here called Dot's Canola Oil) when rolling out black or chocolate fondant and have no problem. I did this at my first demo the other week-end and everyone was impressed and said they had never thought of it. Move the fondant icing around as you would if you were using potato flour etc.