Hi all. This is my first post I am making fondant leaves for a cake and it's my first time using fondant. I bought a cute (but probably unnecessary) rippled fondant piece drying mold from Wilton but it's not big enough to let me work in the volume I need to right now. I like the idea of having curved leaves but it's not necessary for most of the pieces I'm making.

Having not used fondant before, I'm curious as to any tips you all have about to set pieces properly for drying. Can you just lay them flat on parchment paper? I'm assuming you can if you want to get flat shapes.

Thanks for your help!

You can dry fondant on any flat surface for a flat design. For curves, you can use paper towel tubes cut in half the long way to dry curvy leaves in a pinch.

You can add a product called Tylose to your fondant which will help it dry faster, or you can use gumpaste instead of fondant. Gumpaste dries faster and harder.

Check out these link. They might help answer your questions, too!

http://whatscookingamerica.net/PegW/DecoratingFondantQA.htm (scroll down to 'making fondant flowers')
http://tinyurl.com/24w5tfu

I just set my fondant pieces on waxed paper and let them dry out on the counter. I did that this week with a cake I had to make for Sunday. I did the pieces tuesday and just left them until Saturday and they dried beautifully. I just use a (clean) kitchen sponge to form my shapes and whatever kitchen utensil will work for the shape. HTH

try drying your fondant on large bubble wrap. You can get all sort of curves using the bubbles and spaces in between.

Light crumble up some foil and then spread it back out and lay your leaves around on it to dry. I like this for things that I don't want to have the exact same curve and such.