I made my very first batch of chocolate MMF today, and it's definitely a lot different than the regular MMF.

I have a few questions about it:

1) The color is not at all what I expected it to be. It's a much lighter shade of brown than what I want. I added 2oz of melted chocolate and 2 TBSP of cocoa powder. However, I am aiming for a dark, rich, cocoa brown but it's not even close to that color. Honestly, it's a little darker than beige. So I decided to try adding brown gel color to it, and I've used about 1/2 my jar of brown and it still isn't the correct shade. Do I just keep adding brown? Should I try a little bit of black instead? With all of this addition of gel color, will my fondant be way too weak to adequately roll out and cover the cake with?

2) The fondant is really dry and cracking. I've been adding gel color to try to get the correct shade of brown, but it's STILL dry! Anything I can do to remedy this? FWIW, I used a full 2lb bag of sugar LESS 1 cup. I usually add the full bag when I'm making regular MMF, so I definitely needed to add less this time.

I hope someone could help me with this! It's for my own daughter's birthday cake and I *really* wanted a dark brown cake.

TIA!

It isn't much help to you now, but when you want a darker shade, I use Hershey's special dark chocolate cocoa powder. It makes it a lot darker to start out with. I have never used melted chocolate in the MMF, I just substitute the cocoa powder for some of the powdered sugar. It is a lot more "finicky" than regular MMF though - I agree there. I wish I were more help to you.

Have you tried kneading in a small amount of shortning?

I followed the Chocolate MMF recipe from this site & got a very nice dark brown.

That recipe called for 1/2 - 3/4 cup of chocolate chips (melted) and 1/2 - 1 cup of cocoa powder. Were you following a recipe or doctoring the original MMF recipe?

I would add more melted chocolate and possibly a little corn syrup to lessen the dryness. If it gets too sticky, sift in more cocoa powder.

I agree with Loucinda about kneading in some shortening...should help make it more pliable.

Good luck!

Here you go:

http://cakecentral.com/recipes/2408/chocolate-marshmallow-fondant

Hope this helps!

I recently made the CMMF from this site and followed the recipe exactly. Mine turned out really dry as well. I think next time I'm going to add in some shortening to the mixer. Don't know how much though... maybe 1/4 C.