What is a fondant?

What is fondant or icing fondant?
Fondant icing, also commonly called fondant, is an edible icing on cakes and pastries used to decorate, shape and sculpt cakes and pastries. The fondant is made of water, sugar, gelatin and glycerol, and its texture is different from other ice creams; The fondant dough, unlike other icings, is hard and resembles hard pottery mud, while the fondant is a liquid in the form of a thick liquid (like honey). In French, fondant means "melted" and is derived from the root "fondue" or " found ry".

Types of fondant
Types of fondant in terms of physical properties can be divided into the following categories:

Liquid fondant
Liquid fondant is a cream-like compound used to fill or cover cakes, pastries, candies, or candies. The simplest fondant is made from sugar and water, which is stabilized with gelatin and glycerin. It is cooked until it becomes a soft ball and then cooled slightly and mixed or beaten to mix the air with it, until it turns into a cloudy mass with a creamy texture. It is sometimes added as a lemon or vanilla flavoring. Other flavorings and various coloring agents are also used. An example of its application is Cadbury Crème Egg, the contents of which are convert ed sugar syrup and produced by the processing of fondant by invertase. Cakes decorated with fondant are usually coated with liquid fondant.

Fondant dough

Fondant paste is popular for decoration due to its ductility. The dough fondant is easily formed and has the ability to absorb color. This material does not spoil easily, so it has a longer shelf life than other decorative materials for cakes and sweets. Cake with fondant dough is not only a source of energy because of its ingredients such as sugar, but also because of its simple and easy formability, it has made the decoration easier. Also, the properties of fondant dough have caused fondant on the cake to be one of the unique capabilities of this dough for cakes, and decorating cakes with fondant is one of the most common cake decorations.
Fondant dough, icing fondant (cake decoration), or patinis (whose ingredients are different from liquid fondant) are commonly used to decorate birthday and wedding cakes. Although wedding cakes are usually made with almond paste (known as marshmallows) and royal icing, fondant is becoming more and more popular due to common allergies to nuts, as it does not require almond meal. Fondant dough is made with gelatin (or agar in vegetable recipes) and glycerin, which has a nutritional grade and keeps the sugar in a flexible state and creates a dough-like composition. It can also be made using powdered sugar and melted marshmallows. The fondant dough, like the hard dough that covers the pie, is opened and used to cover the cake.

Commercial fondant dough, which is stable at room temperature, is mainly made from sugar and hydrogenated oils. However, there are different formulations for fondant that are stable at normal temperatures and include other raw materials such as sugar, cellulose gum and water.

Uses of fondant dough:
The fondant is most used as a fondant on cakes. Ready-made fondant dough is also used to decorate and sculpt sculptures for cakes and pastries. Liquid-like fondant is also used as an oral adhesive, depending on its concentration. Laying fondant on cakes or decorating cakes with fondant dough is very common and more common than other decorative coatings. Among the different colors of fondant, chocolate fondant is very useful and popular. Fondant cake can be prepared ready or at home. Cake fondant is made using fondant tools and is easier to work with.

Fondant Sculpture
Sculpting fondant is similar to fondant paste but has a harder consistency, which makes it a good combination for sculpting.
The icing or step dough is similar to fondant dough, but eventually hardens quite a bit and is therefore used to decorate larger cakes such as bride and groom shapes, larger flowers, and so on. The raw materials for sugar dough are mainly egg whites and powdered sugar.

Fondant production process
Liquid fondant is obtained by supersaturating water with sucrose [our own sugar]. To do this, more than twice as much water, sugar must be dissolved in boiling water. After the dissolution of sucrose, if the solution is left in place to cool, the sugar will remain in the supersaturated solution until crystallization begins. In the case of a supersaturated solution, if a crystalline grain (insoluble sucrose) falls into the mixture, or if the solution is stirred, the sucrose turns into a crystal which forms large brittle crystals. However, if the solution is immobilized to cool, and then stirred vigorously, very small crystals (the same small plants) will form, leading to the formation of fondant with a soft, uniform texture. Also, in some cases, fondant is made with marshmallows, which go through a similar process and have a milder taste.

Reasons for increasing the use of fondant in the cake and confectionery industry
As mentioned, fondant has a firm sex (like pottery flowers) and is suitable for shaping and creating fancy designs. Also, the ability of the sugar hobby grain to be colored and the base to be white is a great advantage for creating visual appeal in making cakes. In such a way that all the tools and capabilities in creating handicrafts in areas such as porcelain flowers or play dough can be generalized to the formation of fondant dough. On the other hand, compared to ingredients such as marshmallows (a combination of almond kernels and sugar), more ductility, lack of basic taste of nuts and the problem of sensitivity of some people to nuts, the use of fondant has become more common.

Fondant nutritional value table
As can be seen in the table below, most of the fondant ingredients are sugar. For this reason, it has no nutritional value other than sugar and hydrocarbons.

Nutritional value per hundred grams

373 calories
Percentage of supply of daily requirement *
0% fat
0% saturated fat
0% unsaturated fat
Cholesterol 0%
Sodium 0%
Potassium 0%
Hydrocarbons (93 g) 31%
Fiber 0%
Sugar (89 g)
Protein 0%
Vitamin A 0% Vitamin C 0%
Calcium 0% Iron 0%
Vitamin D 0% Vitamin B-6 0%
Vitamin B-12 0% Magnesium 0%
* The amount of daily nutritional value is calculated based on a diet of 2,000 calories per day.

For more information, read the nutritional value of different types of cakes.

Fondant Benefits
In terms of food, fondant, like sugar, is a source of energy. But most of fondant is due to its decorative capabilities in ductility. The dough fondant is well formed and has the ability to absorb good color. Also, due to its high sugar saturation, it is a substance that does not spoil easily and has a longer shelf life than other cake decorations. Bottle fondant, which depending on the concentration, has a shape similar to juice to hard honey, is also used as an oral adhesive.

Disadvantages of fondant
Since most (almost all) of the ingredients in sugar fondant are sugar, its disadvantages are equivalent to those of pure sugar. Therefore, its use should be controlled in people with diabetes, liver disease and diet. Many people on sugar-restricted diets cannot use fondant cakes. For this reason, diet cakes that do not use sugar are usually without fondant.

What is a fondant cake?
Today, fondant cake is one of the most beautiful and common types of cake toppings. It is possible to prepare fondant dough at home or ready-made. Since cake decorating with fondant is very popular, in this article we will teach you how to prepare fondant and introduce the uses of fondant dough.

How to prepare homemade fondant:

How to prepare fondant dough with marshmallow:

• Half a kilo of marshmallows (you can use colored marshmallows to color the fondant dough)
• One kilo of powdered sugar
• Oil and water as needed

It is very easy to prepare fondant dough with marshmallow. Melt the marshmallows with 2-3 tablespoons of water in a container in the microwave or by the Ben Marie method (with indirect heat on steam) and stir after every 30 seconds. Then we add powdered sugar to it and knead it with oily and greasy hands until it becomes dough. Remember to lubricate the surface on which you knead the dough in addition to your hands. Professional tools require fondant to decorate the dough, but for simple decoration you can use a knife, rolling pin and a few shaped molds. Using fondant dough, you can also make different shapes such as flowers, hearts, etc. Also, fondant cake with this dough is another application. You can also make chocolate fondant by adding chocolate powder to the ingredients. Chocolate fondant is very popular for all kinds of chocolate fondant cakes. You can easily make fondant cake at home.