How to Dye Fondant
Fondant is a wonderfully versatile cake and confectionary decorating tool. Its ability to create an almost endless variety of forms, flowers and shapes makes it absolutely invaluable to the serious cake artist. Before you can begin creating all the wonderful items that go on a cake, you must first create the proper colors of fondant that will match your design plans.
Items Needed:
- Rolled fondant
- Food coloring gel
- Cling wrap
- Rolling pin
- Confectioner’s sugar
- Vinyl cooking gloves
- Sprinkle a generous amount of confectioner’s sugar down on the surface of your work table. This will prevent the fondant from sticking to the table once the food colorant is added.
- Remove your white fondant from its container.
- Make sure you bring out slightly more fondant than you think you will require for your project. Without keeping exact quantity measurements and drop notes, the ability to match colors with fondant is an almost impossible job and it is therefore an excellent practice to make a fair amount of the fondant in a specific color in order to save you from possible frustrations later when you discover you require more of a color you are suddenly out of.
- Working slowly, gently knead the fondant, using your hands and the surface of your table to begin to loosen the fondant.
- Continue kneading until your fondant is completely relaxed and you are able to form a ball between your hands.
- Create a ball of the fondant between your hands and use the heel of your hand to create a flattened indentation in the fondant.
- Squeeze out a few drops of gel food colorant onto the indent created and fold the fondant over onto itself.
- Knead the fondant, folding over again and again onto the color dropped area.
- Continue this motion for a few minutes until you begin to see the color leeching through the fondant in streaks.
- Wash your hands and put on your gloves.
- Continue kneading the fondant until all the color has been incorporated into the material.
- Gauge your color. If you are unhappy with the saturation of the fondant and wish it to be darker, add two or three more drops of your food colorant and continue kneading.
- Repeat this process until the desired color is reached.
- If you discover your color is too saturated, tear off a small amount of white fondant and knead in your hands until soft.
- Incorporate the white fondant onto your kneaded colored fondant until smooth. The color should lighten.
- Repeat this process until the color lightens to your satisfaction.
- Work the colored fondant into a ball and place it on a generous amount of open cling wrap.
- Wrap the fondant well within the cling wrap and flip so that the bulk of the fondant is resting over the folded side of the cling wrap.
- Use a rolling pin to firmly roll out the fondant within the cling wrap. This will help remove any undesirable air pockets.
- Place the fondant in your refrigerator until ready to use.