hi. I've been looking around for recipes for fondant and I've found that I'm unable to follow any of the recipe on the internet. the problem is i live on a remote island so some items i simply don't have access to like glycerine and gelatin not even marshmallows are readily available. I've found the recipe that involves egg white undesirable, not a big fan of using raw eggs. so i tried a little experiment. i simply added powered sugar and corn syrup (no liquid glucose so i substituted it with corn syrup) and kneaded it and to my surprise, it came out just like the stuff i seen people use on tv.

i found the fact that it came out like it did hard to believe. i figured there must be a catch, after all, those ingredients i left out MUST be for SOMETHING right? i continued to experiment, cutting the "fondant" into 4 pieces and adding different food coloring to them, to see if adding the liquid would effect it in some way (who am i kidding i just wanted to make it colorful lol). i then rolled all the different colored fondant and flatten it with a rolling pin. it still kept it's form. for my last test, i just left it out on the counter over night, looking to see if it will get hard and crust, which is what happened to the egg white recipe when i tried it. when i woke up it hardened but only slightly, much better than the hard brittle fondant i made with egg whites.

so my question is this. are ingredients like gelatin and glycerin really needed to make fondant? or can i just use powered sugar and corn syrup?


this is the forth forum i asked this question. all the others simply told me to "order the items online" completely ignoring my statement where i said "I LIVE ON A REMOTE ISLAND". this is a simple yes or no question, if i can't can someone explain why? i really want to know before i make my nephews birthday cake. please answer.

glycerin and corn syrup are closely related. Corn syrup just has some water added. That's a reasonable substitution. I'll let someone else address the gelatin.

This is one link that I found for gelatin:


Animal protein substance having gel-forming properties, used primarily in food products. Derived from collagen, it is extracted by boiling animal skin and bones. It is commonly produced as granules or as a mix with added sugars, flavours, and colours. Immersed in a liquid, gelatin takes up moisture and swells, causing the mixture to solidify. It is used to make such foods as molded desserts, jellied meats, soups, candies, and aspics and to stabilize such emulsion and foam food products as ice cream and marshmallows. It is nutritionally an incomplete protein. It is also used in various pharmaceutical products.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/gelatin#ixzz18nkdkixD


and anotherlook at the second paragraph)

http://www.ochef.com/632.htm


Unfortunately I can't give you a simple yes or no answer to your question but these are some resources that I found to give you information on the purpose of gelatin. It is up to you on your nephew's cake. HTH

finally people who give me a mature answer!. thank you very much! as you probably guessed by my asking about it, I'm a total noob at fondant so i wanted to make sure. based on the info from the sites that were posted, i think i can pull off just using the powered sugar and corn syrup. now that i have gotten that out of the way, i'd like to ask one last question.


fondant is sugar plain and simple. i intend to put flavoring in it by still i feel that the share sweetness of the icing may make the cake taste bad or something. am i worrying for nothing? or should i try to make the cake a bit less sweet and add more flavoring? come to think of it, i haven't even decided what flavor to use lol.

My suggestion is not to lower the sugar, because sugar in so important to the cakes structure. Instead add some almond flavor (or cafe or mint... depends on cake flavor) to the icing, that will cut the sweetness and it is a great flavor enhancer.