Easy Marshmallow Fondant

A few years ago for my birthday my husband bought me the Wilton Giant Cupcake pan! I was so excited to start baking with it. I’ve made several cakes using this pan and I’ve learned along the way that the regular old “spread the frosting on the cake with a knife” trick doesn’t do this cup cake any justice. So I’ve experimented with a few different ways to decorate this cake… using frosting with different decorating tips and a bag is delicious, but usually turns out a little messy looking, making a candy shell liner for the bottom of this cake looks awesome but doesn’t lend much to the “frosted cake” taste. I’m a frosting girl myself, so I knew there had to be a way to decorate my cake and eat it too ;o) That’s when I decided to try my hand at the marshmallow fondant I had heard so many rave reviews about.

Over the past few years, I’ve adapted a recipe I found on allrecipes.com to be my own. Just be warned… even though the fondant is super easy to make, it does take time (how much time depends on how detailed you want it to get), but not without fabulous results! Shown are some of the first fondant cakes I made back in the day and after doing these two fairly quick and simple cakes I became much more comfortable with fondant and realized its true potential! I’ll post more pictures of other cakes soon.

So before you get to the fondant, you need to bake your cake and let it cool. I usually just use a boxed cake mix, but recently I’ve come across a tip to replace half the water with that amount of sour cream and I’d have to say besides giving the cake a moist and absolutely delicious taste and texture it also makes a sturdier cake. If you’ve already made your cake the regular way, no worries – these giant cup cakes were made the regular old way too and were still successful. When the cake is cool, frost your cake with the flavor of frosting you like. It doesn’t have to be thick, but it can be if you like frosting like I do!

Now on to the Fondant!

Marshmallow Fondant

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter or shortening
• 1 (16 ounce) package miniature marshmallows
• 4 tablespoons water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 pounds confectioners’ sugar, divided
• Desired colors of food coloring

Set butter in a small bowl or plate and bring to room temperature. Pour the marshmallows into a large microwave safe bowl  and microwave on high for about 1 minute. Stir the marshmallows until nearly smooth and add the water and vanilla while you continue to stir. When mixture is smooth, separate into smaller bowls by the number of colors you need and amount of fondant in that color that you need (I left white in the original melting bowl, used another bowl for pink, and another for yellow).

Its much easier to add the color at this point. Take one of the bowls of marshmallow mixture and keep adding drops of color until you reach a color a little darker than your desired color. Repeat with all bowls/colors.

Now add the powdered sugar until the fondant becomes workable. I start by stirring with a spoon but use my hands to mix before too long. What can I say, I’m a little impatient!  Rub your hands in butter or shortening and dig in. As it gets stiffer turn the fondant onto a surface dusted with powdered sugar and knead until it is no longer sticky and all the powdered sugar is worked into the fondant. If your color isn’t quite right you can add more drops of color to the fondant, but be prepared to use your muscles – you’ll have to knead it in to get a smooth color that is completely worked into the fondant.

At this point, most people refrigerate their fondant overnight (which you can do) but again, I’m a little impatient so I just use it as is and it has worked well every time. Clean off the dusted surface and rub some of the butter or shortening there. Roll out your fondant to desired thickness. For the larger pieces lay them over the cake, adjust until smooth and use a pizza cutter to cut around the bottom edges for clean easy cuts. If you are placing fondant on top of fondant (as I did with the dots on the cupcake) dip your finger lightly in water and rub the back of the piece you are putting on your cake. That will help it stick well. Walah! Stand back and behold the beauty of Marshmallow fondant you created! Aren’t you amazing? I thought so!