I am confused as to what the difference is in CMC, Tylose and Gum Trac. Also when and why do you add them to fondant. I've read you can make gumpaste from fondant by adding gum trac. to it. This seems great for money savings and now with the colored fondants easier. But, do you get the same results with hardness as with lets say Wilton's gumpaste, which I always use.
Somewhere I read you add CMC to fondant to stablize it, why, and what does that mean. Do you add it to the fondant your going to cover a cake with? So I hope someone can clear this up a bit. Thanks

Tylose and Gum Tex are essentially the same thing. Not sure what acronym CMC stands for, but I"d guess it's the same too. You add them to fondant to get it to harden up faster and to give it some hold, esp if you're working with figures. Gumpaste dries way too fast for my liking. It gives you virtually no time to work on your piece. And I found that it cracked and had lines in it. I don't get that with tylose and fondant. Yes and it's much cheaper! The advantage of gumpaste is that is rolls very thin and is great for flowers and such. Or if you actually need something to dry fast, but you have to work fast! If you put a couple of Tblsp's of tylose into your fondant, it will dry almost hard in a couple of days.

Thanks Cakerocks for your reply, I am mainly interested in making flowers with fondant and the other additives. So, I guess I'll just try and see how thin I can roll and how fast they dry. On the Sating Ice website, they say you can add the gum trac. to their fondant and use for flowers.....we will see. Thanks again. Margie

http://thesugarlane.com/2009/05/12/whats-the-difference-tylose-powder-cmc-powder-trag-powder-gum-tex/

Thank you Texas Sugar for the link, it explained it very well.

Gum Tragacanth is a natural product vs CMC/Tylose being man made.

They both do a similar job in making your fondant/gumpaste firmer.

Most professionals would prefer to use Gum Trac because it also makes your fondant/gumpaste "pliable, elastic & easy to shape" as per the Sugarlane article above.

Being a natural product that is not as widely available, making high quality Gum Trac rather expensive in comparison to CMC/Tylose powder.

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