Decorating Technique: Using Fondant

the appetizer:

Learn ingenious tricks for making cookies with Cookie Craft by Valerie Peterson and Janice Fryer, including recipes for Easter and Spring Cookies and for Halloween Cookies; and decorating techniques like Using Fondant.

Decorating Technique: Using Fondant

Fondant is a broadly used term referring to confections made from sugar syrup and used for decorating baked goods or filling candies. Here, we're referring to the popular, ready-made rolled fondant, which is widely available in a variety of colors. It is super easy to use—it's kind of like a child's edible play clay—and thus has the advantage of providing cookie crafters with instant creative gratification. We personally prefer to use it sparingly for small decorative details to allow the great taste of our cookies to shine through. Note that fondant dries out very quickly after it's opened; keep what you're not using in a sealed zip-top bag. Following are a variety of fondant decorating techniques to enable you to indulge your own preferences. What you'll need to get started:

ready-made rolled fondant in a variety of colors
rolling pin and 1/8-inch cookie slats
cookies and cutters in desired shapes
pastry brush
light corn syrup

Covering Cookies with Fondant

If you want to decorate a cookie entirely with fondant:

1 Roll out the fondant using the cookie slats.

2 Cut the fondant with the same cutter you used to cut the cookie so that the fondant shape matches the cookie shape.

3 With your pastry brush, lightly paint the cookie with corn syrup, then place the matching fondant on top and smooth it with your fingers. The corn syrup will "glue" the fondant in place.

Creating Designs with Rolled Fondant

It's easy to dress up your plain fondant with stripes or dots.

1 Roll out the dominant-color fondant as a base.

2 For dots and stripes, form desired shapes from contrasting colors. Roll small balls for dots; roll ropes for stripes.

3 Place the balls or ropes on the base fondant. Using the cookie slats on either side of the base fondant to ensure that you reach a uniform thick- ness, roll the balls or ropes into the base fondant to fuse the colors.

4 Cut as desired to cover the cookies.

Creating Contrasting Shapes With Rolled Fondant

To make distinct, detailed contrasting shapes:

1 Roll out your base-color fondant.

2 Using cookie cutters, cut desired shapes from the fondant.

3 Roll out contrasting-color fondant and cut out the same shapes you removed from the base.

4 Place the contrasting-color shapes into the shaped holes you cut in the base fondant, as you would jigsaw puzzle pieces. Then roll the base fondant and the contrasting fondant with your rolling pin and cookie slats to fuse the two.

Imprinting Fondant and Creating Cutouts

Use small cookie cutters, aspic cutters, or household objects to imprint designs in the fondant, in the same way that you imprint raw cookie dough (see page 88), or use them to make fondant cutouts that can be affixed onto cookies, such as flowers or a band on a hat.

Making Fondant Details

Fondant can be sculpted into decorative details for cookies. You may have to practice a bit with shaping and sculpting these details, but in no time you can create fondant leaves and vines (such as those on the pumpkin on this page).

Cookie Craft
From Baking to Luster Dust
Designs and Techniques for Creative Cookie Occasions
by Valerie Peterson and Janice Fryer
Storey Publishing 2007
$18.95; hardcover; 160 pages
ISBN: 978-1-58017-694-1
ISBN: 1580176941
Information provided by the publisher.

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