I'm doing my nephew's wedding cake in a couple of weeks. It has different size pearls all over it. I made a practice cake with the pearls made out of fondant. He liked the cake, but hated how the fondant tasted. He wants chocolate. The pearls are to be baby blue and white so I figured candy clay would work. My questions are:
1. Does candy clay handle and dry like fondant?
2. How far in advanced could I make the pearls. I have to make a bunch!
3. If I don't use candy clay, what could I use?

Thanks everybody for the help. My practice cake is in my photos. The cake looked okay far away but up close looked rough in places. Also my icing had hair line cracks in it which probably came from moving the cake around so much. Hopefully I will have better luck on the big day!

lbass

You can add that Lorann flavoring to fondant to improve the taste. Just remember that it is highly concentrated and only use a little at a time.

The candy clay does taste good. You can use the blue Wilton candy melts to make your pears in various sizes. The recipe for Candy Clay is 14 oz bag of candy melts + 1/3 cup light corn syrup. Just melt the candy melts and then add corn syrup and stir till it thickens and all of the corn syrup is mixed in. I then lay out two sheets of clear plastic wrap and then pour the candy clay out onto the plastic. Here's where it gets messy. I use paper towels to absorb some of the oil -- using the plastic wrap to lift up the candy clay like you're kneading dough so that I can keep moving it around and pressing the paper towels into it so they absorb some oil. Once I see that most of the oil is gone, I wrap up the candy clay in the plastic wrap and put into a ziploc bag and store over night. The next day you have to knead it and then use it like you use fondant.

I've made candy clay designs far in advance of when I needed them and haven't had any problems with them.

Good luck.

Candy clay takes long to make. Once you pour it out over plastic, you need to cover it and refrigerate for about 24 hours, then take out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature. Once that happens, you can knead it like dough.

I like using fondant because it's very malleable and I'm used to it, although I have also used candy clay many times.

I guess it's a personal choice.