I want to practice covering a large cake on a dummy cake. I have a few questions, hopefully you pro's can help me with.

1. Do I cover the dummy first with anything, I want to be able to use it again?
2. Can I keep reusing the same piece of fondant, to practice over & over with?

Thanks!

Just mist your styro w/water. Yes, the fondant will come off in big hunks and you can keep using it over & over.

I cover the cake dummy with piping gel first. I don't reuse the fondant though -- I buy the Wilton fondant with coupons to use on the dummies.

If you want to re-use your fondant I would rub your dummy down with some crisco rather than misting with water. The water will make your fondant sticky and hard to handle and the crisco will not do that.

I cover dummies in fondant allt he time and I simply rub with crisco and apply the fondant. The fondant sticks to the crisco enough to stay on the dummy and then when you want to take it off it comes off very easily.. much easier than if you use water or corn syrup.

I tried covering my Styrofoam dummy with Wilton fondant and it didn't hold. Was going to use this in class for teaching instead of baking a cake.

How do you mean it didn't hold? Did it tear? If that's the case simply buff the sharp edge off with a nail file (unused) and that will stop the tearing. If it kept coming off the dummy then rub some crisco on it and it will stick to that.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.