Useful Tip For Those Without A Clay Extruder Gun
Decorating By mumof3 Updated 19 Aug 2011 , 11:19am by JuliSchulze
Hope this helps 
(though chances are that you guys may do this already..... 
)
I dont have a clay extruder gun, and needed some long snakes/ropes, for a graduation cake(In my photos). I was getting fed up of rolling out snakes, as I never achieved an even thickness. So instead, I placed some fondant in an icing bag and microwaved it for 20 seconds, enough for the fondant to become soft. I then kneaded the fondant, snipped off the end of the bag and piped the fondant onto a mat. You can achieve different thickness by varying how much you snip off the icing bag.
Hope this makes sense! : 
I just tried it and it worked like a charm although it was a bit hard to press out of the piping bag 
I like to roll out using a fondant smoother - works quickly and perfectly each time for me.
That is a fantastic idea...I will try that next time. I have not tried the fondant smoother, but I have used pieces of cakeboard (the shiny side) to roll an even thickness before.
Also, I've learned that modeling chocolate lends itself to even ropes a LOT easier than fondant.
Another trick while trying to roll out a snake is once you get the fondant partially rolled you can place an object next to the fondant for example a pencil and continue rolling both the fondant and the pencil next to each other. You'll end up with a snake the same circumference as the pencil. Then use the fondant smoother, piece of cardboard to finish the rolling process
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