Can someone please help me! I am trying to make fondant people, for a beach themed cake, and I would really appreciate it if anyone has any good tips or free tuturials. I am also interested in the clothing aspect of the fondant figures. Any help would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Cyndi Lu

being a noob, i can only offer what little i know about the subject. last weekend the wife made some fondant, and while it was really good (for fondant), it was far too soft to ever shape into people let alone sculpt. i said it was like trying to sculpt water. the wilton fondant you buy at the store, which is terrible to eat (though i've heard they've changed the recipe, so maybe it's edible nowadaze), has a much firmer consistency. maybe you can get away with very basic figures using that, but i'm not sure i'd want to spend the money to find out from what i can recall of using it a couple of years back. maybe your recipe is firmer....

i think your best bet would either be gumpaste or modelling chocolate. i've watched about a billion and three tutorials on cake decorating on youtube, i'm sure there's something you can use there. about the clothing, i'd just probably paint them on, but i'm not sure what style of figure you're going for.

good luck, hope that helps a little bit.

If you add tylose to your fondant it will stiffen it and make it dry more quickly - it works more like gumpaste. I have only done a few figures, and am not very good at sculpting, so I don't know if my advice on that would be very helpful .

there are heaps of tutorials on youtube, as lynn1968 said - thats gonna be your best bet. They take a lot of time and patience so make sure you have left yourself plenty of time

I just uploaded a picture of a pink cake with a muffin on top for 1st birthday. The bow on there is marshmallow fondant which I got the recipe for here on CC. For the bow in the front I coloured my fondant pink and sprinkled on some tylose (kneading really well to combine) and that turns it into gumpaste. Much easier to work with because it holds it's shape, unlike normal fondant which is really soft. For the circles on the cake I just used normal fondant, no tylose was added. I have found that works a treat.

I always just use fondant. For people you definitely do need to mix a strengthening agent in. I kneed in about 1 teaspoon of gum tragacanth powder to 500g fondant. Works well.

People are easier if you don't aim for realistic...it's easier if you go for a more funky cartoonised look. And although you don't HAVE to, you're more likely to have success if you use wooden skewers (or some use dry spaghetti) up through the middle to hold the figure all together, particularly the head. My only other tip would be to make in sections...eg. make the legs, let them dry for a day, then add the torso, let dry another day, THEN add the head.

There's no right or wrong way to make figures. Just get your fondant out and start playing.