I am making my first fondant bow tonight. Can you guys send me some tips.

The tutorial on the home page is very good - see loopy bow.

let it dry for a really long time and use candy melts to put it together. It's going to take a while for each layer of the bow to dry so be patient.

I would disagree with the above suggestion to follow the tutorial.... it was a disaster for me..... no disrespect to the author. The only part that was useful was the positioning of the loops, ie some on their side and some up.

I recently made one (well two as the fist went into the bin).

My tips are:

Allow more drying time than you think. Waaaay more than you think.

Let the loops dry on their side rather than over a broom handle ... this tends to make them tooo uniform in shape and therefore harder to fill the gaps.

Make various size loops so that you can fill gaps. Make more loops than you think you will need.

Experiment with strips of paper as to the length to cut the fondant or gumpaste strips.... the tutorial does not offer any guidance on this.... and the first loops I made while they looked ok in strips once made into bow and position, overwhelmed the cake so had to make them shorter.

If making out of fondant... add a little extra gum trag or similar to aid the drying time.

Do not use melted down fondant to glue it together as it is toooo sticky... some suggest it as it matches colour perfectly but very difficult to work with.

Use royal icing or try candy melts (I have never used them so don't know). Colour the royal icing to match the bow.

Take your time...... practice makes perfect

Hi There!

I suggest using royal icing to glue your loops together. Candy melts, IMO, take too long to harden.

I use the Perfect Height Rolling Pin made by Wilton to get even thickness of my loops, 1/8". It works great!

I use the pan, or plastic container, the size of the cake that the bow is going to be placed on when I put it together. It helps you visualize the size of the cake to as to make an appropriate sized bow.

HTH!

Mirjana

I'm with dky. I had HORRIBLE luck trying to make bows out of fondant. They stretched out of shape...I couldn't get them on the dowel without screwing them up...they pretty much NEVER finished drying...and fell apart when I was trying to assemble.

Then I tried gumpaste....

Can be rolled thinner so it looks more like ribbon....dries MUCH faster...dries harder...doesn't hve to be dried on a dowel - just turn the loops on their side. They are lightweight enough that they don't pull themselves out of shape.

mvucic, thanks for that tip! I plan to try bows this weekend and that is such a great idea.

Hi there,

I have made so many of those bows. First roll out your fondant to your desired thickness. A litte tip, if you need this bow for a cake earlier than 5 days, I suggest using gumpaste. You can roll it much thinner and they dry much quicker. Also, for drying, place in their sides and shape to your liking, then place the pan or whatever you place them on in your oven with the light on. Helps to dry a little quicker.
Roll out your paste. I have the fondant bow cutter, I cut my strips and then cut them to 61/2 inches long. You will want 22-26 loops. The average bow usually uses about 20. Make a few extra for breakage
When assembling, I put a mound of buttercream icing. Insert the bows alternately one up, one sideways all the way around. Same for the next layer and so on until it is full. If you like, you can make couple of tails that you can have coming out.

If you go to my photos, I am sure that I have at least one cake with a bow..I will double chedk, if not I will add one now.

Good luck, let me know if I can help any further.

I tried making the bow too. It was terrible. The loops totally stuck to the broom handle, even with powdered sugar everywhere and when I tried to get them off they cracked. Don't make them all the same size because the top part of your bow needs to have shorter loops than the ones on the bottom or it is misshaped. Even after drying for days it hadn't hardend so I had to dry them in the oven, once I got them dry, I assembled them on the cake and because of the humidity I guess within a half an hour they had soaked up the moisture in the air and they all cracked and fell in a big pile. It was horrible. I will definetly try gumpaste next time.