and I have been kneading it for like 20 min. I am trying to add shortening but it is not working. I also added a little bit of glycerine.It is the pink fondant and I do not have wilton to mix it with. It is breaking as I am kneading it. Any suggestions? I cannot wait until tomorrow to do so any suggestions will help. Thanks!

Bump!!!

I put fondant in the microwave at defrost for 10-30 seconds at a time (depending on how much) to soften it if it keeps cracking. After it softens a little in the micro it tends to come together kneading quicker. HTH

At this point you might have over-kneaded it and it might be done for the night. It may or may not be ok after several hours of resting.

OR if it looked like that from the beginning (like it's falling apart, but a dry type look) it may be TOO moist. I sometime have this problem with their ivory. Let it sit, exposed, for 20 minutes or so, kneading it up every so often so that the mass loses some moisture without gaining any crunchy bits. HTH

Why do you knead it for 20 minutes?
That is too long and it is starting to dry out. IMO and experience, nothing brings it back after it starts to dry out.

You should only need to knead to 5 minutes at the most to get it where you can roll it out. If it is a large amount for several tiers of cake, do it in sections. Always keep it in a tight, airproof plastic bag. Put each section in the bag after you knead it to keep it moist.

As for rolling it out, we use The Mat at my shop. I teach all my girls to use The Mat. Once I let a girl do it her way and had a dry, cracking mess on the cake. Now I get *itchy and stubborn and make them learn it my way. It is my name that goes out the door, not theirs. So they learn it my way. We have very nice fondant covered cakes with no cracks, drying, elephant skin or pleats - all thanks to The Mat.

And yes, we use Satin Ice.

Thank you all! The fondant was brand new and I had never had that happened to me before. It was all cracking and crumbling from the beginning. Maybe it was too moist or maybe it was a bad batch. It look dry. I do live in Florida but we have the AC on 24-7 and that tends to dry things so I do not think it was the humidity. Maybe I was kneading it for too long but I just kept on knewading it hoping it would change. I did use High ratio shortening to knead it (as I always do) though. At the end I gave up and drove to Walmart at 1:00 am to get Wilton fondant (oh, and ad I was driving to Walmart I realized I had a completely flat tire! so I had to go back and get my hubby's car.) I kneaded a little bit of the wilton fondant (I did not want the color to change much) with SI and it was like magic! problem solved! I wish I had done that before so I wouldn't have waisted close to two hours! Thank you all for your replies. Now I know what to do if it happens again. One more question, What effect do you think the glycerin has on it? I added glicerine hoping it would help. Thanks again!