Hi!
I tried my hand at fondant yesterday and let it sit nicely wrapped, but it is crumbly. It is the glycerine and gelatine version.
What can I do to make it workable? I'm doing a polka dot cake for my daughter's 8th birthday on Saturday and have all the colours ready, but the blasted thing cracks. I read it should be kneaded until its soft and doesn't show cracks when you stretch it, but that's not what I get, and I've kneaded it for about an hour and also put it in my kenwood on very slow speed when I noticed it wasn't up to standard.

I'd be grateful for any help!

Thank you

Truthfully? I'd take the 40% online coupon at Michael's and go buy some Wilton pre-made fondant if all you're doing is polka dots. Not Duff's! It's way too soft IMO.

Sorry I can't help you with the other! good luck

Try adding some small bit of glucose to it. If you don't have that then add a wee bit of corn syrup. It might get sticky and if so add a bit of shortening to your hands and knead that in and keep kneading until smooth. If first addition does not smooth it out, add a wee bit more of the glucose. This always works for me. HTH

Thank you both for your answers!

I'm in New Delhi, India and I called THE shop where you can get fondant today... (because you have to call ahead to warn you're coming over -don't even get me started on that one- ) but they couldn't be bothered to open the shop and told me to come back on Saturday... OK. Incredible India, they say. So I'm stuck with my lovely crumbly fondant!

I'll try alternating glucose and glycerine if it works for some I'm hoping it works for me! Our icing sugar has 0 cornflour content, so I've added a little but I don't want to get flaky fondant either. I guess it'll have to be a combination of heating it up and adding drops of this and drops of that.

I spent all afternoon baking the layers, eggless cakes take an age, it was touch and go because we had no power for 6 hours straight today (Incredible India again) so I'll be up half the night creaming up and setting and fondant-ing! Yeaaaah! Just before 20 kids turn up on my rooftop terrace, easy peasy!

The stuff we do for our kids, right?!

Sorry, I lie, there is another shop but it was closed yesterday for some reason and today because it's Friday and the owner is Muslim, and well, day off! Lol
Baking in India is like and egg and spoon race and a hurdle race all in one...

OOOHH- I am so sorry!! After the time it takes to mix and get the colors right- that really sucks! I have never worked with fondant that uses glycerine and gelatine, I use my own MMF- and if it gets crumbly I just heat it up in the microwave or add shortening! I am sorry I can't help- but just wanted to give you a huge:

THAT SUCKS!!!! But no matter what- I am sure the kids will love the cake-even if it does have crumbly fondant polka dots!!

Haha! Thank you for your support!! I'll try heating it up too, it did work when I coloured it last night, but it hardens really fast.

I made MMF this summer for my icecap cake for my little one's 4th birthday, but it tasted vile and was rather humid even though I must have used twice the amount of icing sugar! MMF in India costs a bomb to make because the marshmallow is imported and therefore leaves you out of house and home. That's why I decided to try my hand at the other version. I must say it is a lot easier to work than the sticky mess of MMF, but now I have the opposite problem!
The downside is that the gelatine I got when I used to live in China (we move a round quite a bit) absolutely reeks of pork bones, so I have to warn all the veggies at the party not to come near it and I have to add a non dairy cream layer in order to isolate the vegan cake from the fondant
The good news is I picked up some gelatine in Dubai when I transitted to France at Xmas, so the next lot of fondant will definitely be porkless!

Ah the glamourous life of expats, ey?! Parchment paper and silicone moulds from France, gelatine from United Arab Emirates, Crisco once in a blue moon via a diplomat friend with access to an Embassy shop in Delhi, sprinkles from Amazon UK via a business travelling colleague, Kenwood chef via another colleague from France and so on, and so on! With no supermarkets, one can only hope things will get easier someday!!


Off to whip the non dairy cream


Weeeeeeeeeeeee!

Wow you just made me appreciate Michaels, Joannes, and my beloved grocery store like I've never appreciated them before Kudos to you for being such a diehard baker!!!!
Sounds awesome about all the traveling though!
And FYI- I have a super easy eggless recipe on here for chocolate cake - doesn't even require a mixer - I don't know if you'd have all the ingredients available- but if you do- this is yummy and easy!
http://cakecentral.com/recipe/delicious-moist-chocolate-cake-eggless

Yeah the travelling is great, we don't have time to get bored of a place, really, but the of course it has it's downsides.
I make a basic choc cake without the coffee and vinegar (I love that you forgot the sugar in the recipe!). I baked two today and just made a tofu ganache and stuck them together. They're setting in the freezer, it's nearly midnight and I still need to get the whip thingy topping on it and stick the lot in the fridge until fondant time in the morning. I'm not sure if I can let the whipped thing covered cakes out, let alone fondant covered, so I'll just have to go to bed. Good job it's still coldish, because by the time we hit the little one's 5th birthday in July it'll only be fondant weather, no creamy or buttery bits...

Make the most of your shops indeed, we have to hop from one place to the other here, you just can't do one weekly shopping in one place, it's lots of different places and little "markets" which are dirty dodgy dusty disorganised dumps, by any Western standard. Get the pork for the Hindi guy's shop, get the beef delivered by the Muslim guy, make your own sausages if you want to avoid chicken only sausages laden with milk powder, get your wellies on to go get your fresh shrimps (only in the cold months), go to the Russian market for your active yeast, bribe someone to get access to a cash and carry that sells French cheese, mourn your soft balsam Kleenex, call your Reiki and Art of Living Masters when you feel you're going to burst a fuse, you know, fun and games!

I'm off the non dairy whipped cream up my choc cakes, as the carrot and pumpkin and white choc ones are done.

Bye bye!

Oh my goodness! It was Hell on wheels!

I warmed up the fondant, heated it, added glycerine andnsyrup, corn flour, kneaded it and yet it wouldnt roll to a thin layer and of course broke all over the cake because of the weight! Aaaaaargh!!

Thankfully, le smaller coloured pieces, which I assumed would be drier and crumbling, rolled out beautifully and I was able to cut loads of dots which came in handy when it came to hiding the mess!!

She absolutely loved her cake one layer of carrot, one of pumpkin and white chocolate and one of dark chocolate with a dark tofu ganache. All vegan. Yum!

Hello there!... i read all about your problems with crumbly fondant and trust me I am facing thing!!!... i'm just starting out on my cake venture and i would really like to know which two stores in New Dehli actually do sell readymade fondant even if they are closed from time to time hehe.... would be much appreciated!!!

AHi sorry, I haven't been on here for a while, busy working Pigmento in Bhogal market and CHANDANMAL KANHAIYALAL in a grotty market Laxmi nagar side. 9350006999

Vizyon fondant is cheap but tastes rubbish and the white you get isn't white after a while. Most cakes in Delhi are covered in this sh..., which is why they're horrible (when you add the pleasures of disgusting shaving cream instead of proper cream and the syrup they add to badly baked cakes).

I've started my own thing www.facebook.com/enchantedspatula