Seeing as I am a newbie, I have a newbie kind of question. Can someone tell me the usage difference between fondant, marzipan and gumpaste? Which one is better for what type of thing?

Thanks!!!

Bump!

I too, am very interested in any answers you folks might have... Thanks in advance!

Ali in MA

I don't know a lot about marzipan...I believe it's an almond paste, but I've never used it...I also believe it's a lot like fondant in terms of workability...I could be wrong. Gumpaste is used for flowers and figures that you want to dry HARD. Fondant is used for covering cakes and stays fairly soft on a cake...you can make things out of it too, but it takes longer to harden than gumpaste, you can also use a mixture of half gumpaste and half fondant when working with flowers or figures, this will speed the drying time of the fondant somewhat. I hope this helps.

It does help, dinkadoo! I've seen what I thought was marzipan being used like I would have used fondant and just didn't know why you would choose one over another.

I also recently finished a shamu cake and ended up making the tail out of fondant. I didn't know if something else would have worked better ( I did have that issue of the thick, heavy tail remaining pliable longer than I cared for - maybe mixing it with gumpaste would be better next time).

Thanks!!