Vinyl for Fondant question...

I've never used this technique before, but read about it on CC in the forums a while back and was impressed to give it a try....

I just went to the fabric store and saw some of the clear vinyl on a rack and thought "oh goody, I'll get some and try it"...So bought a 1 yard piece of clear vinyl to roll my fondant out on, and to help place the fondant on the cakes with as well...What's the best all around size to cut the size of my vinyl down to, to keep it a good all around size but also easy to manage as well...or should I cut it into a couple different sizes to accommodate what size sheet of fondant I would need to roll out???

Also....Please,give some of your best tips to use this vinyl threw your experience's using it to manipulate fondant onto cakes....

Thanks in Advance,Mary

The piece I use most is about 25" square. It just depends on how big of a cake you're making. I figure I have the rest of the yard I bought if I want a bigger piece for a bigger cake! Be sure and lightly wet your surface that you put your vinyl on. It keeps it from slipping while you're rolling out your fondant. I've had good luck just using a very light coating of shortening on my vinyl. My fondant doesn't stick at all. I just flip the whole thing over onto the cake and peal the vinyl off! On larger cakes, it helps to have an extra set of hands available if possible when flipping and pealing back the fondant. Hope that helps!

So cut it about a 25 X 25..makes sense to me...if i needed a piece to cover a 14 in cake the surface would need to be no less than 22 inches anyway....

Ya know what, I had wondered how the vinyl would stay in one place when rolling the fondont over it....never in a million years would I have thought to slightly wet the surface first...Thanks for that handy dandy tip..

I bet I would have gotten so frustrated trying to roll the fondant on it and not knowing how to prevent it from shifting around that I would have given up and threw it out!!!

How do you store your vinyl?...Would it be best to keep it rolled up on a gift wrapping tube?

Meant to ask...if you lightly coat the vinyl with shortening and it peels off easily when turning it over on the cake, does that mean you don't have to lift and shift the fondant while rolling it out on the vinyl as well?

I just bought some of this a few weekends ago cause I was covering a cake larger than my rolling mat would work for. I have a glass top table and learned I don't have to do anything to keep it from moving. It actually stuck to my table top. I didn't grease mine and it worked fine, so you may want to try some extra fondant and see if it will peel off with out anything on it.

If you are wanting to use the vinal to flip it up on the cake then you want to do nothing or grease with crisco. If you roll it out on powder sugar/corn startch it will slide off it.

Thanks for the tip!

I coat the vinyl with a little crisco. I cut my vinyl to the size of my island. I also have a smaller piece of vinyl that I use for figures and smaller projects. To make the vinyl stick to the counter, I just run a wet wash rag over the surface and then roll out the vinyl. Sticks perfectly. To store it, I make sure it's clean and dry and just roll it up.

I roll mine up and store it on a gift wrap tube, but if it gets a wrinkle or doesn't want to lay flat I hold it in the shower with hot water running over it. It will get warm and plyable then and I can flatten it back out.

Also, after I roll out the fondant I can pick up the vinyl and the fondant sticks to it. I hold it up to the light to see if I have any spots I have rolled to thin.

Wowzers...thanks everyone...your tips are soooooo informative...I cant wait to do my next fondant cake so I can use my new vinyl...

I'm hoping too that with me having long nails, that using the vinyl will help me not to indent or tare the fondant when handling it as well...any one have any takes on that?

You can also use it to make your own impression mats........ Just place the vinyl over a picture, or words, or ANYTHING you want to copy. Use your hot glue gun to trace the image, and when it dries, you can press it against your BC OR fondant and then pipe over it in the color you wish..... Just remember, if you are using it for lettering, you must reverse it or it will be backwards on your cake.......

Thanks for all the tips. I need to get me some vinyl, since my mat is too small at times. I also like the tip about tracing with a hot glue gun to make your own impression mat. How cool is that?!

Frosting111, I roll my mat over my long rolling pin to help it keep it's shape.

I bought mine at Walmart and they had a couple of different thicknesses (sp?). I bought the thicker one.

The last wedding cake I did required that I roll the fondant out to 30". I used Crisco on the vinyl and flipped that fondant right onto that cake with the fondant still on the vinyl (which is definitely not my preferred method - I like the rolled side of the fondant to be the topside). I peeled the vinyl off of the fondant with no problems at all.

I also keep several smaller pieces for smaller cakes, as I prefer the vinyl over any of my Wilton mats. It's great for rolling out gumpaste too.

The decorative/lace vinyls are also good to use if you want an impression on your fondant...It's just like using an impression mat..

OK I just bought my vinyl today. You forgot to mention that a yard of the stuff is only three BUCKS. Yahoo!

Anyway any special tips for cleaning this stuff properly, do you just wash it in the sink or do you sterilize, e.g. with vodka (as I saw someone elsewhere post, about something else entirely). I got the thickest they had but it's still kind of floppy, just wasn't sure if it would be hard to wrangle in the sink or if there is some other way

Just take a warm soapy sponge to it while its spread out on your work surface. Follow with several clean water wipe-downs, and dry thoroughly. Roll around a gift-wrap tube and store.

Hmmm, I've never had a problem with my vinyl not sticking to the table I'm working on... Mind you my table is glass so maybe that's why.

Buying my vinyl was the best thing I ever did!!

If I may jump in here...so you roll your fondant on the vinyl and then just invert it over your cakes? This is so you don't have to pick it up like pizza dough and lay it on? Sounds really interesting, I had not heard of this.

Penny - Ya, just like that! SOOOOO simple! And cheap! As a pp said, it's only about $3 for a yard, and I bought 1/2 of that and then cut it into 2 equal squares so I've got 2 surfaces!

I also use it for rolling out nfsc! Works great!

How much does it affect the look of fondant to have crisco on the mat so it doesn't stick??

Thanks!

I haven't done this but I remember it coming up a while back and I was under the impression that the fondant was rolled in between two pieces of vinyl. Has anyone tried that?? Thinking that would be great to have the two choices of smoothed fondant to decide which one to lay topside on your cake.