I have seen online several (what seems to be) good receipes for marshmallow fondant. I would like to try it, but I don't have a mixer. I plan on getting a spiffy one for Christmas, but it's not Christmas yet. I've got everything in the kitchen you could ever want...except a mixer.

So, my question is this. Do you have to have a mixer to make your own fondant? The first couple of tries I was just going to buy the ready made kind anyway to kind of give fondant a "test drive" since I've never tried it before. Ready made fondant is very expensive though! Surely it must be cheaper to make your own!

I use the dough hook on my kitchen aid to do the initial mixing of my MMF but there are a lot of people on here that mix with a spoon and then knead in the rest of the powdered sugar.

No you don't need a mixer! I make mmf all the time and I've never used a mixer. Just my good old hands!
I mix it with a spoon until it becomes too tough and then I knead on a mat coated with a little shortening!

This website has so many helpful people. Thank you!

Also, how do you know how much fondant will cover? Like if you make a batch of fondant that weighs 2 pounds how big of a cake will that cover?

That I really don't know. I usually make a couple batches at a time(seperately so it's easier to work with) so that I always have lots on hand if needed. I ran out halfway through a cake once and it was a pita!
So now I always do more! I also have a mat that shows me the diameter of how much I need to roll out to cover x amount of cake.