Marshmallow Fondant

How many times have you heard someone say that they don't like fondant? I heard it countless times before I started making my own. Fondant gets a bad rep because store bought fondant is usually tasteless and stale. This is not the case with homemade Marshmallow Fondant though. I love making my own fondant. It is way cheaper and the taste blows all of the store bought brands out of the water. I mean, you know that store bought fondant isn't tasty when you can't even buy it at most superstores. You have to go to a craft store most of the time just to find it! A lot of people think that it is hard to make but honestly, it isn't at all and it only takes a few minutes.

You will need:

1 Box Powdered Sugar

1 Bag Mini Marshmallows

Food Coloring

But most importantly:

Oh yes, you need shortening. Lots of it.

Rub the shortening into the bowl and all over your work area. All over. You can't have enough. Seriously.

Put the marshmallows in the greased bowl with 2 tablespoons of water and microwave at thirty second intervals until it looks like this:

You can also add a few teaspoons of flavoring. I usually only add Vanilla extract because even though a lot of people seem to love almond extract in this,  if you are making a cake for a large group, you don't know if someone has an allergy to nuts or not. Vanilla gives this a really nice flavor anyway, pretty delicious for fondant.

Pour the whole box of powdered sugar on your greased workspace. You should really sift the powdered sugar first but if you forget like I always do, it will be fine. The lumps of sugar will be worked out by the end anyway.

Pour the melted marshmallow mixture right on top of the powdered sugar.

STOP! WARNING! RUB SHORTENING ALL OVER YOUR HANDS! This will stick to your hands and when that happens, it isn't pretty. You can't have enough shortening on your hands for this step.

Now that you have shortening all over your hands and wrists, knead the dough until it forms a ball.

Now for the coloring. I needed two different colors so I separated the fondant into two different balls. If you are only making one color, add the food coloring to the melted marshmallow mixture before you pour it on the powdered sugar. That cuts down on the amount of time spent kneading later on.

Take a toothpick and dip it into your food coloring and then wipe off directly onto the fondant.

Knead until the color is consistent all through the ball of fondant.

A couple things make this easier.

1. Work quickly. If the fondant is still warm when you tint it, the color will spread easier.

2. Make sure you still have a lot of shortening on your hands. The shortening will help you get the consistent color that you are going for. It will also keep the coloring from staining your hands.. For days..

Since I am not doing anything with this fondant until tomorrow, I rubbed a little shortening all over each ball, wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them in air tight containers.

I found this recipe through a youtube video a long time ago. I can no longer find that video so I unfortunately cannot give credit to the person that I got my inspiration from. However, I do believe that Wilton also has this recipe on their website.