hi all, i was wondering what would be the best way to start decorating using the fondant and the best recipe to start with for the fondant. i love all the cakes you do, they are all so beautiful. anyway i have never used fondant but love the way it looks, can't afford a class right now money is tight. so i thought i would try it on my own. i want to try and make a cake for my dad in december so that gives me lots of time to practice and get some ideas and hopefully have at least a little experiance to make a presentable cake. so all of you who have the experience please share. thanks so much in advance.i have done the star tip cakes for my kids with barney, and winnie the pooh and that sort of stuff .

Welcome to CC!!!
I am pretty new at using fondant too..I am taking Wilton classes and they have pretty good instructions on their site just to get you going...

http://www.wilton.com/recipes/recipesandprojects/icing/rolledfondant.cfm

There is also a ton of stuff on CC (search on the forums)...I wouldn't recommend using Wilton Fondant for your Dad's bday cake as there are better tasting fondants for sure and quite a few posts on that...lots of people make MMF (marshmallow fondant) which tastes good and there are many people who could give you advice on it...

HTH

Jane

i think peopleare scared of fondant and i dont know why! it is so much fun!! i get my fondant from satin ice and i think it is pretty good. i have seen ALOT of people on this site us marshmellow fondant which you can make (check recipies more MMF) i have not used this yet.

cover your cake with a layer of whatever frosting you use, roll out fondant (good to have a mat of some sort) place mat with fondant on top of the cake, make sure its center and peel the fondant away from the mat.

with you hands smooth down sides, it there is alot extra i usually cut it off with scissors and then to get down right to the bottom of the cake i used a pizza cutter to trim.

remember though once your fondant touches the icing on your cake it is ON there.

also, to be sure you cover the whole cake measure the cake across and two sides.....so if you have and 8 inch round.....8" across, 2" on either side high, you will want to roll out your fondant to 12" around inorder to cover the entire cake.

hope this makes sense, just play with it, its not scary...its alot of fun!!

try the simple mmf recipe... way cheaper than wilton.

i have a recipe for mmf, that i plan to use. i am excited. i love to do new stuff and think i can get a handle on it pretty quick. hopefully he will like it. thankgoodness i have plenty of time to work with it. i will probably work with it when its rainy here. oh when do you at the color.

Good luck with it! I think you'll find that MMF is really easy to make and work with. One piece of advice though is that you probably won't need to add all of the powdered sugar the recipe calls for. If you try to knead it ALL in the fondant will be really dry and crumbly. If this happens you can knead in a little Crisco and it will help restore texture, but you can also avoid the problem by not using all of the sugar.

Again, good luck!

welcome!! I think that I'm going to try MMF today (or this week, anyway) Good luck!

I am going to try it this weekend too... i have been told you can add your color to the melted marshmellows before mixing them with the other stuff.. of course you get all one color then.