Marshmallow Fondant

It was my son's birthday last week and he has been asking for a Transformers cake for months now. I wasn't sure how I was going to go about making it but I found a picture online and thought the easiest way was to use fondant... provided I could figure out how to make it first! A friend of mine who makes adorable fondant confections told me about marshmallow fondant. Apparently it is much better tasting than buying fondant and turned out to be pretty easy to make. I found a youtube video online done by The Twisted Sifter with really good instructions... Go HERE to see that.

I did a half batch because I didn't want to cover the entire cake with fondant. So here are the ingredients for half the recipe.

You will need:
1/2 bag marshmallows
1 lb. bag powdered sugar
1 1/2 tbs. water
1/2 cup shortening
Gel food coloring, if you want colors

Start by putting the powdered sugar and shortening in your mixer. Melt your marshmallows and water in a microwave safe dish for 1 minute. Mix them around until melted together and pour this over the powdered sugar.

It will look like this at that point. Turn your mixer on low and mix until pretty well incorporated.

Turn mixture out onto your counter covered with powdered sugar and knead until it forms a semi-dry ball. It will be pliable like play-doh but a bit thicker and less sticky. Add gel coloring and knead until you reach the color you want. That part was the hardest because I needed a dark red. I kneaded it for a good 30 minutes to get it the color I finally wanted.

(Disclaimer: no my nails aren't disgusting, the dye turned them blue! I will be using gloves next time.) Roll the dough out with a rolling pin and cut whatever design you like. I also rolled balls of it for the bottom of the cake. You can cover the entire cake with fondant but you will probably need a full batch for that.

This picture has nothing to do with fondant, but it looked too good not to post. :) Fill your cake and frost it. You will need to do this even if you put fondant on the entire cake. Then just place your fondant creations right on the frosting. I put my cake in the fridge over night and the fondant still looked good the next day. It also tasted really good. My grandma suggested dipping balls of it in chocolate as another treat.

Ta Da! My son was so excited about his cake that he wanted it before presents! I am totally in love with using fondant now. Try it out, you will be too!