Fondant Bow Questions..help Please
Decorating By springlakecake Updated 3 Sep 2006 , 2:38pm by tiggy2
I was just asked to make a cake for Sunday. I am dying to try the fondant bow. If I made it say tomorrow (tuesday) would that be enough time for it to dry? what if I added the gumpaste? What is the best to glue the loops togther...chocolate, royal? Do most people dry theirs over a dowel? About how long should I make the loops? I dont want a huge bow, I'd like it to go on top of an 8 inch cake with some room left over if possible.
using 1/2 gumpaste and 1/2 fondant will give you the best results. Dries faster than fondant along, but not as fast as gumpaste.
Cut a strip of paper as a template to see how long you want you loops. I found that wrapping them around a much larger dowel holds the shape great (broom stick size is great).
you can 'glue' the ends of the loops together with a light brush of clear vanilla, water, corn syrup, most any wet thing. Just not too much.
Ooh I need help on this too! Having so many problems! I added some tylose powder to make a "gumpaste" and I had trouble w/ it stretching a lot as I picked it up to hang it over the dowel.... well mop handle. Then I had the problem of "how the heck do I get it off the mop handle??" I tried to move it a little and the strips broke into pieces!
I'm getting a mold today from countrykitchen that is supposed to help you w/ the bow.... I hope it does! At least for the length of it and putting it together.... we'll see! Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be some big mess!
wow-that is all it takes to "glue" them? I would never have guess that extact or water would be enough to hold them together. Thanks for the replys..Do those of you who do a lot of them do the method as posted in the cc article?
I do what nefgaby does. I lay the loops on their sides on a cookie sheet. Just make sure to use royal or chocolate dyed the same color as your bow so it isn't noticeable. The water or extract is only to hold each loop together.
As for size, it depends if you want a huge, tall bow or a smaller, wider one. For the huge, tall one, make all loops the same size. For a shorter bow, make the loops on each layer a little shorter, 3 inch loops on the bottom, then 2 inch loops, then 1 inch loops on top. For a 6 inch cake, I would start with 3 inch loops and if it was too big, trim the 'glued' ends a little.
Have fun!
Maybe your gumpaste needs a little powder sugar kneaded into it or perhaps you are rolling it too thin? I have tried both ways and I prefer the broom handle.....I unscrewed the broom part to get the loops off and before I put them on I taped wax paper around the handle!
I use royal for my loopy bows.............I dry the loops overnight and then put the bow together ON the cake top. Ditto on making sure the color of the royal icing matches the fondant/gumpaste. You can add gumtex to fondant to make it set up faster. Loops that are too long make the bow look more sparse than it should. Shorter is better! I lay my loops on their sides to dry also.
I have a couple of bows in my gallery. One was made last weekend for the baby shower cake. I made it on Friday for the shower Saturday. It was out of fondant, and it dried just fine overnight. I use candy melts to assemble the loops, as they seem to dry faster and hold stronger. Also, I tend to make my loops shorter, and use as many as I can get in there. I think the shower cake has about 20 or 22 loops. I dry them on their sides, as sometimes, the broom handle "stretches" them out of shape and makes them thinner than I like. I use the super pearl to give them the irridescent look. Hope this helps!
Yeah, I was thinking of getting some kind of dowel just special for loops. The broom handle thing seems a little germy to me too! But if you just dry them on the sides they stand up okay, I meant they dont get mishapen or anything? I guess you could probably roll them out a little thicker?
A thick dowel would work. I just lay them flat because they seem to have a nicer shape that way. Kind of like a real bow.....not so "identical" with each loop. They don't collapse on their sides....and I don't roll them too thick. You will be surprised at how sturdy they are and how they sit on their sides if you try it. Good luck!
You can use just water to glue the ends of the loops closed, but I have always used candy melts to actually glue the loops to each other to form the bow. I like the candy melts because they dry faster so when I add the next layer they do not shift around. I have used royal icing once, and can see pros and cons to it, but I needed to put that bow on the cake in a few hours and the royal didn't dry as fast as the candy melts does.
As far as the size for loops. It depends on how big you want the bow and how big the cake is. If I am doing an 8in cake and want the bow slightly smaller than the top of the cake then I will do my bow about 6 to 7 inchs. To do that I will do the lenghth of the loops the size I want the bow to be. So I'd do it about 7ins long. Then when folded the loops will be around 3.5 inches long.
I also do some that are short than those and some pretty short ones for the tops of the bow. You can also make some that are skinnier than the other ones, which can go into 'holes' that other loops won't fit in. And don't forget your bow tails. 
Thank you! I think I will give it a shot now!
ugh! fondant and I have some serious issues.... these bow loops won't really stand up well on their sides - they are okay, but they don't look consistent - the size of each "loop" is a little off...
And I'm trying to use a ribbon strip mold from countrykitchen that I just bought so that the ribbons would all be the same length - but when I pick up the fondant, it still stretches. I've added more powdered sugar, more cornstarch, and tylose powder - no luck! Still stretchy as can be! I'm using a home-made fondant - it's a white chocolate candy fondant from the "Guide to rolled icings" book. Tastes good, but I'm having so many problems. I've tried rolled buttercream and I've tried Satin Ice fondant - Wilton fondant is nasty but it seems to be the only one that works sometimes for what I need to do....
Also, when I put the loops around a dowel rod to dry - they seem to stretch downwards 
so they still aren't a consistent size.... what on earth am I doing wrong??? The wedding this bow is for is on Saturday and I want to have plenty of time for it to dry.... I really need help a.s.a.p.!!!!!
I had the same issue with the dowel and the stretching of the loops. That's why I lay them on their sides to dry. Also, if you have a study lamp, something that you can bend over easily, you can lay the loops on a baking sheet under the light and they will dry much faster. Just don't use a high-watt bulb. I think mine is 75 watts. It makes the fondant dry faster. The one time I tried the dowel, I ended up with LONG stretched out loops, and the bow looked ridiculous. You still have time to make and dry the bow. I did mine overnight and it was fine. Try that and see if it works.....
I tried laying the loops on their sides - but I still hand the problem of them stretching when I picked the fondant up to move it to the cookie sheet for them to dry on..... and then they don't all have a uniform "loop" to them - some of the loops are wider, some are thinner, some are longer, some are shorter....and they don't stand up very well on their sides. The fondant just kinda "flops" there and you end up w/ a little kind of "squiggley" shape instead of a strong loop. I just don't get it..... if I've added powdered sugar, cornstarch, AND tylose powder - what the heck is up w/ this fondant? And why do I have soooooo many problems w/ this stuff when it seems so easy for others??? I think it hates me..... 
now if I had known this existed earlier..... still too expensive but anyway - see how nice & uniform the loop looks? How is that done???????
http://cakesbysam.com/store/cart.php?target=product&product_id=21811&category_id=275
One thing that might help once you form the loops is to gently insert cotton balls or soft tissue inside the loops until they dry. This helps to hold the shape. I usually do this on large bows, as in the one in my photos of the tiffany box, but I am sure that it would work on loops as well. I don't know why your fondant isn't sturdier....although I usually use the Wilton for things like bows....I know the taste is not so good, but no one usually eats the bows anyway....for draping over a cake, I much prefer the homemade MMF, since it will most likely be eaten. Can you pick up some Wilton by any chance? When I made the bow for the baby shower cake, I cut the loops and laid them out to dry on Friday, then put them on the top layer on Saturday morning. The candy melts dried immediately and I was off to the shower. Took about an hour total to melt the candy, assemble the bow (which I did on the cake) and pack and load the cake.
good ole wilton fondant - I keep coming back to it for its structural properties..... it does taste nasty though - before I didn't think it had much of a taste.... but after I made some white chocolate fondant I thought I picked up a bite of it to eat and I picked up some Wilton - blech! A big glob of that in your mouth is NOT what I was expecting!!! But perhaps you are right - I don't think anyone will eat the bow anyway.... so it could be back to Wilton for me!
How many loops do you usually make though? It's going to be on top of a 6 in cake (which will be on top of an 8 in .... smalll wedding cake). Anyway, any idea how long each "strip" should be before I "loop" it and how many I should make?
Thanks!!!!
Well my loops are drying now! I decided to just lay them on their sides because they seemed sturdy enough. I made MMF and added about 40 % of the premade gumpaste by wilton. I can tell it is getting hard already. I briefly tried to make the loops with just MMf awhile back and set them on their sides and they were flopping over, this seems much sturdier. I will let you know how it goes!
I can usually judge the size of the loops by the size of the cake it's going on. If it's a 6 inch cake, then I know the bow should be a little UNDER 6 inches. So, I cut my loops about 6 or 6 1/2 inches, which, when halved is about 3 or 3 1/2 inch loops. When these all go together, they fit nicely onto the 6 inch cake. Congrats on the drying success! 
I made one small batch of MMF and added the premade gumpaste by wilton. I have never used gumpaste before, so I just thought it would be easier. It was more like 60% MMF to 40% gumpaste. I know a lot of people recommend about a 50/50 mix of the two. They seem to by drying pretty fast actually.
There's a bow in my photos that I made out of 50/50 fondant & gumpaste and it turned out pretty good. I used CK gumpaste mix and pettinice fondant. I let the loops dry for 2 days (on their sides) then used a ball of fondant saturated with water till it was the consitancy of thick pudding to stick the loops into and it held everything in place very well. HTH
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