I was wondering if any of you are frustrated with the amount of wasted fondant after covering a cake. I have paid particular attention to the cake shows to see if there was an idea or method that I have not come upon yet, but they seem to have just as much waste. What do you do to curtail the waste or is there a way to save it for further use? Or are you just as frustrated as I am? Would love to hear and ideas or vents.

well...I reuse it.

just wad it up and knead a few times.

great to make decos out of.


since I start with largest tier first -- I recycling trimmings (so long as clean and only BC or powdered sugar stuck on it) to do the next smaller tier.

Trick is to be sure it's clean -- no crumbs (of course there shouldn't be if cake properly covered in BC) It's not like it's been poisoned or something from rolling and putting on cake -- just maybe a bit on the dry side.

Have found that even if a bit of BC is stuck to it -- well BC is just fats and sugar and flavor -- so it works right in and often makes the slightly dried out from all the handling fondant soft and smooth again.

I reuse it. Like Doug said make sure that it is 'crumb free'. If it's colored fondant...I put it all in the same bag and use it to make black fondant. All of those colors together make it easier to get a rich black color without using so much color.

Me too. I shudder to throw even the tiniest scraps away, especially if I went to all the trouble to make MMF.

I trim the largest excess off first. Usually leaving about an inch of so around the cake before I smooth. That first bit always gets tossed back into the reuse pile.

After I smooth the cake, I will trim again. If there is alot of crumbs or icing I may toss at that point, if not, I'll clean it up and if I need that color again on that cake I'll use it. I don't really save this over if it did get icing in it, but again it is a smaller amount than what I first trimmed.

I use it to cover my boards, got the idea from Jennifer Dontz, she puts the scraps in a separate container labeled for cake boards.

Or as Bronwen Weber suggested, throw the crumbed/frosting "contaminated" (LOL) fondant in the freezer (if you haven't mashed it up and the crumbs utterly into it), let it harden, pull and scrape off, thaw, knead, useable again.

Thanks Doug and all the others. I too cover from largest to smallest and use any leftovers for decorations. But when the cakes is finally finished there is still some leftover. I have tried saving it in the past, but I don't seem to be packaging it correctly because it always get hard. I wrap and re-wrap with plastic cling then I put it in a zipper bag with all the air let out. Doesn't work for me. I would really like to save it, if only to make black later on as mamawrobin does. I was thinking maybe I am not calculating the correct amount for each tier, but I see that the tv personalities also have lot of excess whenever they cover a tier. Thanks for any suggestions.

I find that after wrapping and putting in a ziploc bag I also place in an airtight tupperware or ziploc plastic container. It really makes a difference in the storage life of my fondant. I find the ziploc bags tend to let air back into them and slowly dry things out the air tight container seems to keep things more stable but they still need to be wrapped well before placing in the container.

Also rub a little crisco on the fondant before rewrapping it, that helps protect it from air too.

You can, if you know it will be a while, also freeze fondant to use for another use later one.

I always save mine too if there isn't any crumbs on it. Sometimes if it gets a lot of buttercream on it, I wipe off as much as I can. BUT I've never used it to cover another cake at a later date, just to make decorations...only because I still haven't perfected covering a cake and I think using fresh is probably easier. That sounds weird now that I actually said it. hmmm.

Here's my dilemma...I now have three 5 gal. buckets of different colored odds and ends. Some pretty recent, some getting kind of old. But instead of paying attention to the date, I just seal it in ziplocks and throw it in the bucket when I'm done. So I was just thinking the other day, maybe I should toss it all and start fresh. But next time I'll start putting dates on the ziplocks so at least I know how old it is.

I know this stuff lasts a long time, but how long do you guys keep it around before tossing it?

Edited to add...I also use it to cover my boards too. And another reason I realized I don't use it to cover the cake is because the decorations dont usually get eaten and I want the stuff that I know will most likely be eaten (the covering) to be fresher.