Marshmallow Fondant

After our first attempt with fondant the other day, Chris and I got to wondering about homemade fondant. The Wilton stuff was great to work with and it tasted okay, but we wanted to know if there was a homemade version that would be just as easy to work with, but better tasting.

We looked around online and quickly found a site (Confections of a Food Bride -- which I would normally link to, but it seems to be down right now) that had a recipe for marshmallow fondant. We were intrigued of course and immediately made plans to make a cake and decorate it with fondant, which is actually the real reason we made the Mojito Cake the other day. As with the banana fondant cake, we took a recipe that originally made two 9x2 cakes and instead made two 8x2 cakes and two 4x2 cakes and used the smaller cakes for the experiment.

This fondant was everything the other bloggers said it would be. The recipe was easy to make and except for the fact that it stuck here and there easy to deal with. Once it mellowed overnight wrapped in plastic wrap it was easy to roll out and just as useful and pliant as the store bought stuff we used. One note though, we turned the air conditioner off for a while in the middle of the afternoon and the humidity seemed to make it a bit stickier which we fixed by using plenty of powdered sugar to make it easier to deal with, and eventually by turning the air conditioning back on.

The marshmallow fondant simply said to add 1-2 tsps of flavor -- any flavor you want for your fondant. With the mojito flavors in mind, we opted to use lime oil -- 1/2 tsp to be exact -- which created a mild lime flavor in the otherwise sweet, but virtually flavorless fondant. We used the same rum flavored Italian meringue buttercream frosting for the filling and base coat of the mini-cakes as we used on the original cake. The amazing thing was that after the lime-flavored fondant sat on the cake for a day, the frosting underneath the fondant picked up the lime flavors which only intensified them. It's a useful thing to note -- using leftover lime fondant on a chocolate cake could create some interesting and possibly undesirable flavor combinations.

Now that we have a good base fondant recipe the sky is the limit for the combinations we plan to create. Chris is already talking about our next cake hinting a couple of times that we have lime fondant left to use up, and he has suggested making homemade marshmallows to use for homemade fondant. :)



Ingredients:
16 oz bag plain marshmallows (the small ones, not the jumbo ones)
2 Tbsp water
shortening, for greasing bowls
1-2 tsp flavoring
2 lb confectioner’s sugar, divided
pinch of salt

Grease a microwave safe bowl, a spoon, the dough hook, and the bowl of your stand mixer with shortening (grease it well).

Place the marshmallows and water in the greased microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 60 seconds. Stir with the greased spoon. If all the marshmallows have not melted, microwave for 30 seconds more. Stir in flavoring.

Place confectioner’s sugar and salt in the stand mixer bowl, reserving 1 cup, and make a well in the center. Pour in the marshmallow mix and turn the mixer on to the lowest setting. When it sounds strained, increase the mixer speed up one setting. Turn off the mixer once all sugar has been incorporated. If the fondant is sticky, add the reserved confectioner’s sugar 1/4 cup at a time.

Turn fondant out onto plastic wrap. Rub a bit of shortening on the outside of the ball. Wrap in plastic wrap, place in a ziploc bag, and let rest for at least 2-3 hours. Keep unused portions covered when not using. If the fondant becomes stiff, place in microwave for 20 seconds at a time until pliable.

Roll out on a greased mat/fondant circle to the desired thickness.