Hello all,
I am trying to practise a rope border around a 14" square cake but no joy yet. The fondant just keeps breaking off and getting dry. I have used a lot of shortening and even added a bit of glucose but i just cant get it in one piece. Is my procedure wrong?

I roll out the fondant on a dusted surface and roll it between the table and my palm. It either gets too thin and break off or is too fat and doesnt look nice. I see all these lovely ropes on other peoples cake and they look so uniform and round. Mine looks sort of oblong and not uniform.

Please any tips will be appreciated.

If you are making the rope by hand you may want to try a clay gun or a mold to make the rope look uniform.

Also, roll it out on a counter with a **thin** film of veg shortening. Dusting your surface with cornstarch or powdered sugar is generally not a good idea. I have seen some people roll the rope using two fondant smoothers, although I do have better luck using my hands.

A trick I use to avoid having to do one looong continuous rope is to do it in equal segments separated by pearls/beads, like in these two cakes. I hate looong ropes that get misshapen in the handling or have seams. This is my solution.

http://tinyurl.com/2aknu3k

http://tinyurl.com/29ayarh

You can use the clay gun with the disc with the three holes together. Once you have a long enough strip roll on the table gently, almost a twisting motion until you get the look you want. Never try to pick this rope up right off the counter, it will break. What I do is with a tiny dusting of podered sugar roll it up and then move and apply it.

Global sugar art has a new fondant ribbon applicator. Really cool worth looking at although the price is kind of steep for me.

I have had some success rolling the fondant by hand with a wooden dowel as a guide for my thickness. It has worked for smaller cakes. I also prefer the fondant pearl separator, because the rope can get a bit tricky the longer it's rolled.

have u tried using tylose powder to help with the stiffening?

No, i havent tried the tylose powder yet. Will buy some and give that a trial too. Will the craft gun give a long rope though or do i still have to cut and join the rope. Thinking of biting the bullet and buying the gun. Do you get a lot of use out of the gun?

My frog cake (the orange and yellow one) was only a 10 inch and it was hard to get a rope long enough to cover it- I used the makins clay extruder. I endedup having to do two ropes, which you can clearly see in the pictures where they join. (it looked good at the time... it wasnt until I saw the pics I realized how bad it looked) that is just a long peice of rope to do in one peice.

I never had luck with ropes from a clay gun, so I bought a silicone rope mold. That seems to be the easiest way I found to get that effect.

When you join sections of rope, don't cut each rope straight across. Cut them on a diagonal. This provides more surface area to connect them and the seam is virtually invisible.

DianeLM that's a great tip- thank you!