My hubby and I were wondering (after working on gumpaste animals and watching the nursery rhymes food network challenge)... How do the challengers make fondant/gumpaste figures that don't require time to dry? I saw that one of the people had wire in them but do all of the figures have a support system like that? I was thinking that I've seen some challenges with figures that don't look like they are made with supports, but if I tried to make a gumpaste person without a support or letting it dry over a couple days it would fall! Any ideas? TIA!

The way I understand it is...

they're allowed to bring finished items and use them ONLY if they are able to reproduce that item during the competition.

So, if I want 200 gumpaste roses on a challenge cake. I can make them ahead of time and use the pre-made, dried items on the finished cake but I must make 200 gumpaste roses during the challenge. This is due to the extended drying time required by so many techniques.

This is my understanding of it anyway.

I would say that they are adding Tylose to help dry it out faster.

all4cake, thats what i heard too.
either way the work that is performed on challenges just blows me away!

Wow that's very interesting and makes a lot of sense.

all4cake, thank you! That makes sense, we sat there the whole challenge trying to figure out how they did it. :] pretty sure my DH is turning into a cake nut too! hehe