I have some last minute decorations that I want to make sure are stiff enough before tomorrow's delivery at 10 am. Can I put them in a low oven to help dry them out?

Funny you should ask that. I made a runway for the top of a cake for my daughter's party on Sunday. I put it into the oven to keep it away from the cats and told my daughter that if she turns the oven on to make sure to take it out.

Guess what, she turned the oven on to 350 degrees to make cookies ande left it in. It melted all over the oven and burnt so that I had to make a new one (which I put into a box and covered with tin foil).

I don't know if you can dry fondant quicker like this. Maybe if you put it on really low (under 200 degrees) and kept an eye on it?

Funny Story! Thanks for sharing. My oven only goes to 170. So that's where I set it and I'm going to give it a whirl. I'll either post back with my results, or a story similar to yours!

Anyone else try this?

I just read the other day about putting it in the oven and turning your light on to help dry it quicker. Not turning the oven on though. I dont know if it works because I haven't tried it but it might be worth a shot.

If they are not stiff enough, perhaps you can coat the backside with candy melts? I have had to do that before...

And as for baking, my 8yo son loves to bake fondant. I give him all my weird leftover colors and he spends hours forming and cutting it. When it bakes (on purpose ) it puffs up then falls about halfway as it cools and gets crispy. They don't look so pretty, but taste pretty good and he always wants to take them to his bake sales as "fondant cookies". ps. you don't have to let them brown to get em crispy.

If they are not stiff enough, perhaps you can coat the backside with candy melts? I have had to do that before...

And as for baking, my 8yo son loves to bake fondant. I give him all my weird leftover colors and he spends hours forming and cutting it. When it bakes (on purpose ) it puffs up then falls about halfway as it cools and gets crispy. They don't look so pretty, but taste pretty good and he always wants to take them to his bake sales as "fondant cookies". ps. you don't have to let them brown to get em crispy.

You may want to put a spare in the oven on very low heat and see what happens. You know just a sample.

best and safest results is to do not turn the oven on just the light it will speed up drying alot.

I have turned it on and then off before putting them in but really the lightbulb does the same thing and safer.

yea....I almost had a cake disaster by putting MMF into the oven at a low temp (170 degrees). Ummmm...marshmallows MELT!! I was making tissue paper out of MMF, and thought I would speed up the drying process a little by turning the oven on. It may work if you put your pieces on a cookie sheet, but I had mine on a cooling wrack for airflow underneath the pieces, and it melted thorugh the little holes in the rack. What a disaster!! However, I will say that once it cooled, it was hard as a rock and completely dried!!

Maybe turn the oven on 170 WITHOUT your fondant in it. Let it heat up, then shut it off. put your fondant pieces in and leave the door open to allow the excess heat to escape. Definitely try it with a practice piece first!!

Valerie

I've found with mints and thick royal, I put them up on a rack where both sides can get the most air as possible and have a fan going. I haven't tried the heater thing let us know how it works.

My oen goes down to 170 F. Before I had read all these posts, I put them in the oven and it didn't work. They puffed up and were unusable. Thanks everyone for your adice - I'm going to try the light on trick next time!

So I noticed everyone is commenting that it will melt but here is my experience... Today I had some gum paste decorations drying in the oven with the light on only. I was asked last minute to make some cupcakes, so I turned on the oven while making the cupcake batter. After filling the cupcake tin, I all of the sudden remembered that my gum paste decorations were still in my oven that had already preheated to 350 and had been on for at least 10-15 minutes, I panicked and quickly removed them thinking that they would be ruined and was worried about what I would do because I needed those decorations by tomorrow... We’ll they looked browned slightly like a cookie would start to brown but not to bad and I’m gonna paint them a different color anyways so that wasn’t a problem and they looked blown up like a balloon kind of, which actually made them look cool, so my only other worry was what they would do after they cooled down... Would they deflate and look like crap? Well they are completely cooled down now and still look like a puffy star and moon and are hard so as of now I kind of think that it was a blessing in disguise. I’m going to airbrush them silver and gold tomorrow and use edible glue to attach a skewer stick so that I can put them in the top of my cakes... I don’t know if I just lucked out this time or if gumpaste always will do this in the oven...

I've done it many times with gum paste/fondant with tylose added FLAT decos.  Straight fondant melts.

I place the deco on parchment on a cookie sheet, set the oven to the lowest setting [I think mine is about 170F].  I watch carefully and I use a spatula to move them around on the parchment once or twice.  Never had a problem.

If I'm not in a big rush, I will use just the oven light with no heat.  That usually works well overnight  [8 hours+].

I've only once tried drying fondant in the oven at it's lowest setting.  It was my covered cake board and the fondant puckered and warped.  From then on, I just use the oven light with the heat turned off.

temp has to stay 150 or below -- which is a warming setting -- usually ovens start higher -- dehydrators are good for drying pieces 

well again -- i said "has to stay below blabla degrees " and maybenot was successful at 170 -- i didn't read all the other posts again -- so put it this way -- i keep mine at 150 or below for flat and 3-d pieces and i'm good -- scott clark woolley has the temp in his book -- i could look that up i guess....i was thinkng he might have said as high as 160 but i can't remember and i ain't looking it up right now ha!

but a big deal is don't touch it, try to pick it up  while it's hot because it can get distorted -- especially fondant

i'm remembering better now -- yes my warming drawer on medium is 150 degrees -- high is too high for fondant and gum paste -- 150 is safe

I once tried to dry fondant/gumpaste quicker in my dehydrator, but it didn't seem to work for me.  It kept it warm the whole time and that seemed to slow down the drying process for me.  I've never tried it again, seemed to dry faster air only.  

I have put a fan on things and I think that did help speed up the process!

:)

Yes fan or I have a dehumidifier that I turn on and helps with the drying since it pulls the moisture from my cake room