Rolled Fondant: Cake Decorating's Drapes and Folds

Rolled fondant, also sometimes known as sugar paste or plastic icing, can be made malleable to an extraordinary degree, particularly if you convert it into a gum-paste, and it is used to make edible cloths which drape elegantly on top of a cake:

Fondant is so pliable it can mimic soft fabrics, even bows

For those of you who may rail: "Oh, but it is so specialist!" Well, yes it is - sortof - but if you do enjoy baking then chances are you already have made your way to your closest specialist baking store; if not, what are you waiting for?

Although you can buy fondant, there are a number of very good reasons for making your own: it tastes better; you know precisely what ingredients go into it; once the initial outlays in terms of equipment are defrayed it works out cheaper in the long run; the sheer effort involved in making something from scratch tends to prohibit you from making it everyday, which, in itself, forms the best insurance against endless eating; working on recipes with your kids is a wonderful bonding exercise and the best introduction to fractions I can think of; finally, it is only when you make your own that you will be able to get precisely the effect you want, and on top of that it gives free rein to your creative impulses, and even if they are a flop, at least you can eat them.

There are a number of 'secrets' to making the fondant very thin and pliable, these have to do with rolling it on top of, and coating your rolling pin (glass, if possible, but an ordinary one will do) in shortening, but, most importantly, adding some kind of dried gum-paste powder to the fondant. Technically, this makes it a "gum-paste", however, I consider it slightly fraudulent to present you with a fondant recipe that does not specifically tell you to use a variety of gum-paste powder and then expect you to produce the results they show in the images.

Frankly, you can't achieve drape success without the addition of gum-paste powder 

"But which gum-paste powder should I use?" I hear you ask. "There is such a variety: gum tragacanth, gum tex, dyocell, gum arabic, gum-paste, CMC ... " Well, essentially all of these powders do the same kind of thing: make the fondant more pliable and stronger, so that you can stretch it and drape it and shape it and model it. Some modellers feel some product give superior results for different reasons (pliability versus drying out very hard, for instance); you will also discover that some products are naturally derived and others are the result of manufacturing processes. The biggest issue facing you would simply be that of availability and cost weighed up against functionality and how natural the product is.

Generally speaking, they sell gum-paste powders in small quantities, so you can experiment around, and I have even seen a recipe which uses three different gum-paste powders, which seems fairly extreme to me, but maybe it is really useful - I guess I'll have to give it a whirl one day. As an amateur modeller, I used what was available, and found the difference it made to the fondant quite simply, the difference between a professional looking effect and a totally amateur one. The fact that the gum-powders were something I idly picked up at my local cake store, figuring they were worth experimenting with, and then found them to be utterly indispensable in terms of getting that lovely fabric draping look I intended, indicated to me how fundamental they are, so don't even think of making fondant without them. Even if you buy ready-made fondant, which often has gum paste as an ingredient, you may find a better result with additional gum-paste powders.

Basic Rolled Fondant Recipe:

3 Tablespoons cold water

5 teaspoons unflavoured gelatine powder*

120 ml liquid glucose (½ cup)

1 Tablespoon glycerine (optional: improves softness)

780 grams icing or confectioner's sugar (6 cups), well-sifted

Shortening - as needed, for rolling and pliability

Gum-paste powder: read label on bottle for proportions required

Colouring (optional) - but gel colours must be used, the liquids are too, well, liquid

Flavourants (optional)

* Apparently, agar agar flakes can be substituted if you are vegetarian or you have a religious proscription against using gelatine.

Before you begin, you need a fairly large bowl which you can use in terms of a Bain-marie - it does not have to be complex, I simply use a medium-size pyrex bowl on top of a small stainless-steel pan with a modicum of water in it, over a low flame.

Place gelatine into the bowl and let it soften in the cold water, then place this bowl into a bain marie, and stir until dissolved and the gelatine is clear. Since any tiny undissolved grain of gelatine will eventually end up staining the fondant, it really is important to ensure every last grain is dissolved.

Next, add the glucose and glycerine, and since the liquid glucose in particular is hard and tricky to work with at room temperature, I leave the bowl on top of the bubbling water, whisking it continuously, until all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed. If you are making a single colour fondant or wish to add flavourants, it is at this stage that you would add them. I did not, since I figured that both the firm cake and the butter icing already have loads of flavour, also:

I like the marbled effects you can get by adding colour later

Leave the mixture to cool for a little, a very little while. Essentially, you need a mixture that is cool enough for you to work with it without burning your hands, but warm enough that it is still pliable and easy to mix into the icing sugar - believe you me, I waited once too long and had to deal with long strings of setting gelatine, a less than desirable outcome. In that instance, I nearly broke my Kenwood mixer as it went grind, grind, grind, but then thought to place the glutinous mass in the microwave for a short while on 50% and it quickly become beautifully pliable again. Although you can stir the wet ingredients into the dry icing sugar using a wooden spoon, I am far too impatient and my wrists take enough of a beating daily anyway. 

It is at this stage that you will add the powdered gum-paste in whatever proportion your paste indicates you must use on its label. If you need to work with it the next day, then rub shortening on the fondant, and place it in a receptacle, such as a plastic box, with a tight-fitting lid. However, if you place this in the fridge, you will need to work on it and warm it up again the next day to make it pliable enough to use.

Some tricks I discovered:

When working, rub your surface with shortening, and your rolling pin too, and work at rolling it out as thinly as possible - who wants to eat great gobs of fondant - I don't. 

If the fondant is too hard, place it into the microwave on 50% power for 10 second bursts until it is soft and warm and pliable. Be very aware of the size of your fondant and length of time in the microwave, you can burn yourself badly if the fondant becomes too hot, sugar burns are nasty!

Working with shortening helps, but if it is starting to get too sticky, then dust your work surface with confectioners' sugar and work it into your dough.

If you love the effect of draperies, do purchase a fondant icing roller, with little wheels, a delightfully simple but useful item:

Just roll it along, hard, into your rolled fondant, and the little wheels cut out shapes

The icing roller only works only thinly rolled fondant, yet another reason for making it thin. Once your shapes are cut, you can pick them up and literally plaster them against the buttercream icing. You can even have ribbons flowing down and so on:

This was my first-ever attempt at fondant - the right tools made the difference  

It is also good to buy a few of the flowers or butterfly stamps that you can use to make pretty shapes (they also can be used to plaster over mistakes). Again, the thinner the fondant and the more gum paste powder there is in it, the easier it is to make these shapes, and the more pliable they are. 

Remember, it is an effect you are looking for, so with the bow shape, for instance:

The shape mimics a bow made of ribbons, but excludes a knot

If you examine it carefully, you will notice that it isn't actually a bow at all, I just folded the fondant into mimicking the contours of a bow - you are looking for a theatrical effect, not an actual tied knot. 

What can I say, but that I wish you drape success?