HOW TO FIX AND PREVENT FONDANT DISASTERS
Cracked, lumpy, dry or torn fondant is an absolute nightmare when all you want is for things to go smoothly (pun intended). So many different factors from humidity and environment to an unfamiliar brand of fondant can work against you when it comes to covering cakes.
With our top tips for working with and preventing fondant disasters, you’re cake decorating experience is bound to be less bumpy!
Read on for our tips on repairing and preventing fondant disasters.
Tip no. 1: Sheer perfection
One of the first and, possibly, most important tips we can offer in order to avoid any fondant mishaps is to get your actual cake and cake structure perfect. For super sleek covered cakes you need super sleek buttercream smothered or ganache covered cakes.
Use good quality scrapers, turntables, palette knives, cake pans with sharp edges and excellent ingredients! Working with fondant for beginners doesn’t have to be difficult — just make sure you master the basics!
Tip no. 2: Perfect match
Making sure that you’re using the perfect fondant for you is essential. People prefer lots of different things so test out lots of different brands and recipes and stick to your favorite.
Sometimes it’s unavoidable if you’re out of ingredients, time or if your usual brand is out of stock, but be prepared! Fondant texture is very important — test fondant based on taste, appearance, texture, cost, ease of use, how it takes color and consistency.
Tip no. 3: Don’t crack
A common fondant annoyance is finding your, otherwise, perfectly covered cake has unsightly cracks around the edges. This happens when your fondant begins to dry due to either being overworked or being unprotected from the elements. Here’s a couple methods for preventing that:
If you’re dusting your surface with confectioner’s sugar swap to cornstarch or shortening, as these dry out fondant much less. Or why not try a non-stick fondant rolling mat?
If you need to add some moisture into fondant that seems dry before you’ve even kneaded or rolled it, try adding either shortening or glycerine into the fondant.
If you feel too scared to try our above remedy on your cracked fondant then get creative and re-think your design. Sketches and initial designs are always so much easier to whip up than an actual finished cake, so take a little creative license and think on your feet. Add a small fondant border, change the positioning of a floral spray slightly or think about working your fondant misadventure into an attractive fondant texture (like quilted fondant!).
Tip no. 4: Rub it in
If your fondant has small cracks that have appeared and you cannot re-cover your cake why not try lightly rubbing the cracks in the opposite direction of the rifts. If the warmth and friction of your fingers isn’t working and you’re lucky enough to be working on a white or ivory colored cake try to ease lightly disguise the splits with a small amount of vegetable shortening. Square cakes are notoriously harder to cover with fondant due to the super sharp corners.
Our advice is to practice on dummy cakes until you gain confidence and also smooth the fondant on the sides of your cake upwards not downwards!
Tip no. 5: The more the merrier
One of the worst things to happen to an otherwise smoothly iced cake are bumpy and awkward pleats that can be found creeping around the cake’s bottom. One great way to avoid this is by using and rolling out more fondant that you really need.
Pleats tend to happen when you panic and see how little fondant you actually have around the perimeter of the cake before you’ve even really smoothed it to the sides. Having more fondant rolled out means that you have more to play with.
Imagine icing a cake and finding that you have 3″ more fondant than you need and then imagine how neater your bottom edge with be because of this! Making sure that you roll out and use more fondant than needed is especially important with covering deeper tiers for obvious reasons. With larger or deeper tiers rolling out a larger area of fondant is like a helping hand!
One of the best and most important pieces of advice we can offer is the age old saying that practice makes perfect. Using dummy cakes is a good start due to the sharp corners and convenience, however, nothing will quite prepare you for covering cakes quite like a real cake!
Hopefully, with these essential tips your cake decorating experience will become a smoother experience!
Posted by Felicity and Krystle – Craftsy
