Marshmallow Fondant

I have been baking and decorating cakes for many years.  In all those years, I have never worked with fondant.  When Mr. K told me what he wanted for his birthday cake this year (a slab cake with a bat signal in one corner and a Superman symbol in the other corner) I decided it was time to give it a try.

I am not overly fond of the taste of fondant, and much prefer butter-cream. I have heard a lot about marshmallow fondant and decided to give it a try.

What you need:

• bag of marshmallows
• icing sugar
• water
• oil (to grease hands and work surface)
• microwavable container (although you could do it on the stove instead)

I followed the Wilton Rolled Marshmallow Fondant recipe (although I cut it in half, as I didn't need a whole lot - and I actually ended up using only half of what I made)

Melting the marshmallows is super easy.  I found it tricky once I added the icing sugar (it was so sticky and even with my hands WELL oiled it was sticking all over the place) I was ready to give up JUST as it started to form a ball....so I kept going. 

Once it was rolled I placed it in a ziplock bag and in the fridge to set over night.  

The next day I separated it into sections and tinted it the colours I needed (although my red didn't turn out as dark as I would have liked, but I did not want to use too much food colouring).

I made sure to keep my work surface and hands well oiled, and it wasn't too bad to tint and roll out.  I don't have any fondant tools, so cutting out my pieces was a little tricky, but it wasn't horrible.

To tint the fondant:

I rolled it out, used a toothpick to put a few lines of colour in the middle and then rolled it in a ball and kneaded it just like you would with bread dough.  I did this for each of the colours I needed, and it worked very well.

I will likely work with it again if I have a design that would be easier, but I don't think I would use it to cover a whole cake.

What do you prefer - fondant or buttercream?