I have a grad cake to make soon for a good friend. I have an idea in my mind and it includes a figure. I've done lots of modeling with clay, but never with fondant or gumpaste. I'm seeing a lot of both on you tube - thought I'd better ask - is one easier/better to use than the other? What should I use? I picture a girl standing up with one leg kicked out to the side and arms outstretched...

Hello I just took a 16 hour figure making class with Lorraine McKay from Scotland. She does not use gumpaste at all. In her class she mixes fondant, with cmc/tylose, 1 pound fondant to 1 tsp cmc/tylose. Hope this helps you and good luck! Also gumtex is not the same, must say tylose or cmc.

I prefer fondant mixed with tylose. Gum paste is fragile in that it easily fractures. The fondant tylose mix doesn't do that.

Awesome - thank you so much! I'm assuming that it would be ok to use the tylose with mmf? That's the only fondant I've ever made and figured that it would be "easy " enough for me - I need to work on the flowers with it anyway. You saved me a lot of frustration (and time!)

Wilton pre-made gum paste is better for flowers if you want them to be thin and light. Fondant mixed with tylose hardens the fondant but you can never get it as thin and certainly not as light as you can with gum paste. Plus it dries really fast. Fondant takes longer and IMO does not make as pretty a flower as does gum paste. The fact that it is lighter in weight also helps the application.

For figures I've found that a mix of fondant and gum paste does better for me. It smooths well and it does dry a bit faster than fondant alone.

If you're just using fondant for everything plan on it taking a few days to dry...if not more depending on how think your decor is.

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I always use a mix of Wilton gumpaste & fondant. I make my own MMF and use whatever I have leftover. Do the same for flowers too.

I never would've thought of mixing gum paste & fondant! I have a bag of gum paste from Michaels - so I could just mix that with some mmf - no tylose needed then? Or should I still add some?

For figure modeling, I like to use a 50/50 ratio of gumpaste and fondant. (No need to add tylose or CMC to this mix, b/c the gumpaste already has that or something like that in it.)

I find this allows fine detail (ex: hair strands) that you would be hard pressed to get with just fondant. (Perhaps this is the equivalent of being able to make thinner petals with GP.)

If you'd like to see my standing, grad figure made with 50/50, you can see my home page:
www.jerryscakelab.com

Happy figure modeling!
-j

btw, I make my GP (with Tylose) and use Satin Ice fondant.

Your grad figure is awesome!!! That's exactly what I'd like to do, only in jeans. If you don't mind me asking - how is she stuck into the cake - did you use small dowels or??

I too mix my fondant with gum paste, it works really well for me, I just posted pictures of my newest figures if you'd like to see. Good luck on your figures, don't forget to post would love to see how they came out.