My experience with homemade fondant & making cupcake toppers

After checking around with a couple of bakeries (and even online places) for custom fondant cupcake topper pricing, I almost fainted due to sticker shock. $3.00 - $4.50 PER TOPPER. And I needed 65 cupcake toppers for Wesley's birthday... yikes. So I decided to do some research and make the Dr. Suess cupcake toppers myself - and I did. I've had a lot of people ask me about the cupcake toppers - so here's my experience with homemade fondant and cupcake toppers.

The first things you need to know...
1. It was actually EASY.
2. It actually tastes GOOD.

No kidding!

I've played around with the premade fondant that you can buy (I've used the Wilton brand)... it dried out easily, was pretty pricey (like $7 for 1 lb), and tasted HORRIBLE.

So after lots of research, I made some homemade marshamallow fondant last night and am a total believer now! I seriously can't believe how easy it is, and it tastes really good - like one huge marshmallow!
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Recipe that I used (only 3 ingredients!):
- 16 ounces white mini-marshmallows (use a good quality brand)
- 2 to 5 tablespoons water
- 2 pounds icing sugar (powdered/confectioners sugar)

You also need 1/2 cup Crisco shortening (the solid stuff) for kneading. Adding in flavored extract is optional.

Find the full recipe with detailed instructions here: http://whatscookingamerica.net/PegW/Fondant.htm

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MY NOTES

A couple of the sites that I referenced:
http://whatscookingamerica.net/PegW/Fondant.htm
http://annies-eats.com/2009/09/29/fun-with-fondant/
http://www.insanitytheory.net/kitchenwench/friendly-fondant-figures/

Making the fondant:
- The recipe calls for 16 ounces of marshmallows, but the bags of mini marshmallows that I found were only 10.5 oz. So I cut back the amount of powdered sugar to about 3/4 of one 2-lb bag. The recipe is very forgiving - so you can keep adding water, then sugar, water, then sugar to get the right consistency.
- I was afraid I would get it too dry, or too wet, when making it. But the good thing about it was that once you start working with it, you really can tell if it's too dry (it cracks or breaks when you stretch it). If it's too wet then it doesn't hold it's form very well and is sticky. You want it to be stretchy and shiny, like a ball of bread dough almost.
- I added in my almond extract (1/2 tsp) when I first started kneading the ingredients together - worked great!
- I wore gloves while working with the fondant at first, and also wore gloves while adding the food coloring.
- Regardless of whether you wear gloves or use your bare hands, use a VERY GENEROUS amount of Crisco on your hands and the countertop while kneading. If you feel it sticking to your hands at all, re-grease immediately (all over your hands, backs of hands and between fingers!) I put a big blog of Crisco out onto a paper plate before I got started so that I didn't have to dig into the Crisco container and contaminate the whole can full.

Rolling out the finished product:
- In an attempt to keep my counter clean and make clean-up easier, I started out with my counter covered with parchment paper... which lasted about 2 minutes. The fondant is so sticky that the parchment moves everywhere and makes a bigger mess than if I had done it on the counter in the first place. Then I realized that my counter wasn't really big enough (limited counter space) to roll out the fondant and have all of my tools, food coloring, corn stach, etc out so I moved to my dining room table - much better!
- I used latex-type gloves when adding the food coloring to prevent colored hands!
- When rolling out the fondant to cut it or make your shapes (or whatever), use corn starch to keep it from sticking. Use the corn starch to powder the counter, rolling pin, and the top of the fondant. When you're rolling it out, be sure to keep flipping the fondant over and turning it clockwise... I either turned or flipped mine for every 2-3 rolls that I did (any more than that and it started sticking). Be sure to keep using more cornstarch each time you turn/flip. I used a LOT of corn starch for such a small piece of fondant. (BTW, a couple of sites recommended using my powdered sugar for rolling it out - NOT a good idea. It makes the fondant very dry/crackly and doesn't work well. Use the corn stach for sure.) - Do not roll out the fondant too thin. I did at first, and was so frustrated with how my shapes were turning out. See pictures below.

If the fondant is too stiff/hard for rolling/forming (or if it is cracking):
- All of the sites I read said to put it in the microwave for a few seconds, which I did. And 5 seconds later I burned my hand. :shock I literally put a small piece in the microwave for 5 seconds, reached in take it out and it was like lava! It was liquified (but still holding its shape) and stuck to my finger - not fun. The next time I put it in for 2 seconds and it was perfect.
- If small cracks form in your cut outs/rolled pieces, use a dab of Crisco to fix the crack.

If the fondant is too sticky or too soft for rolling/forming:
- This was the main problem that I had at first. The fondant turned out beautiful - smooth, great texture, tasted great. But when I rolled it out and started cutting it was way too soft. The pieces I did manage to get cut out were limp and pitiful. After researching online, I figured out that I needed to roll out the fondant and let it dry for awhile before cutting. After trial and error, I figured out that letting it dry "for awhile" means a couple of hours - at least 2 hours.
- After a couple of hours the fondant was a little drier, and cutting was a LOT easier! After that I would just roll out a couple of pieces at a time, do some other things, and come back to it later.

Cutting out shapes/pieces:
- I used an exacto knife to cut around "templates" that I printed off. I printed them on cardstock. A few sites recommended tracing around the templates with an edible marker, then cutting the shape - but that seemed like an extra step. I simply held the template on top of the fondant and traced around it.
- The good news is that the fondant is very forgiving - like play dough. The edges didn't have to be perfect when I was cutting, b/c once the shape was cut out I could pick it up and smooth the edges with my fingers.

Cutting out Horton the Elephant using my "template"...



See how thick the fondant is...




Storing the fondant:
- Store wrapped in plastic wrap, then in Ziploc bag with the air squeezed out, at room temp (not in the refrigerator - trust me!) I made mine as far as a week in advance, and it was still as fresh and good as the day I made it.

The (almost) finished Hortons...



More Hortons and some pieces I cut with cookie cutters. I'm piped a number "3" on them for toppers...




One of the finished tree tops...



Cat in Hat hats... Especially in the second pic you can see the fondant getting pretty dry (and cracking)... this fondant had been sitting out about 7 hours (I got busy and forgot about it). Some nuking in the microwave and Crisco fixed the cracking.








The mess...



The the final product...




And on party day -they were a huge, HUGE hit!!