I, my dear friends, am a scratch baker. I feel I am special. Hoity toity. Fru Frou. I make everything from scratch, including my fondant. It's in my sales pitch. It's on my print advertising. It's in my mission statement. I love my homemade fondant. I use Michelle Foster's, so you all know what I mean... it's divine. That woman is a genius. But I don't get many requests for fondant covered cakes, I mostly do cut-outs, ribbons, etc. to put on my buttercream cakes.
So I have a big Yelp Elite event I am catering next week and I want to start pushing my wedding cakes (I already have a great rep as a cupcake gal- I think I want to start phasing them out for small orders). So I decided to make 2 dummy wedding cakes to show on display and serve kitchen cakes instead of cupcakes like everyone else will be doing. And instead of making MFF to cover 2 fake cakes, I decided to buy a pail of fondant since I don't care about flavor/chemicals. My food distributor only carries Massa Ticino (much cheaper then Satin Ice from the local cake store) so I bought it.
It's good. 
Really REALLY good. 
It rolled, lifted, and covered awesome. It LOOKS awesome on the cake. And best of all, it tastes super good too.
So, looks like this scratch baker might be changing her tune soon and using it regularly instead of making my own. 
You really can't beat Massa, period. If you can afford it for your orders, do it. There's no shame in saying you use Massa, cause, well, it is the best out of all options pretty much, scratch or not. I charge a good deal for my cakes, but I don't feel like keeping a regular supply of Massa around (with shipping and it's cost). So I use MFF, which is the next best, in my opinion.
Ticino I think is the tropical version, I guess this is preferred for where I live, being surrounded on 3 sides by water. Anyway, thru my local distributor it works out to be about $4.21/lb, no shipping I just go pick it up a few miles away. I am pretty sure I can't make it for that cheap once I factor in labor and the cost of glycerine, which I can't seem to get local.
TFR!
Massa Ticino (used by Colette Peters) and made by Carma is NOT the same as Massa Grischuna or Americana by Albert Uster--2 different product manufacturers. Both great, but different.
http://www.f o n d a n t source.com/matirofo.html (eliminate spaces)
Rae
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