# Problem with fondant



## pattycake2007 (Aug 12, 2007)

I own a fine artisan chocolate shop where we also do wedding cakes in the summer. I have made rolled fondant sucessfully for years but my chef experienced a strange problem when doing a wedding cake recently. It has us both stumped. 

The only two things I can think of is that it was due to the violet AmericColor Soft Gel Paste coloring we added to it or the 0 grams TransFat of the Crisco. However, I have used other colors by the same brand without a problem and we covered a cake successfully last week which we dyed dark baby blue and also using the new O grams TransFat Crisco. (I didn't even notice it was a new Crisco until I read on another string about problems with it.) However, that cake was much smaller and we covered pretty quickly.

Here's what happened: We were covering a 5 tier cake the largest layer, 14" square. My chef made the fondant and waited overnight and then added the color the next dayusing our 30 quart mixer with hook attachment. 

Right away something appeared to be wrong. It did not have elasticity. It tore like it was tough pie dough. It also would not absorb folds, which usually fonant will sort of ease those back into itself without folds which is why it usually is so easy to work with. 

Perplexed, my chef wnet to dinner and I made the recipee again thinking perhaps a measurement was off. We let it rest for 2 hours, added color this time using a food processor thinking maybe it got overworked in the mixer. Everything seemed good and my chef immediately covered the small top tier. Then by the second tier, we were having the same problem. 

Luckily this cake had alot of decorations on it, so we could hide the tears and cracks, but I NEVER want to deal with this again. It was a nightmare. Can anyone shed light on this?


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## chefron (May 14, 1999)

IMHO, my instinct is to distrust the reformulated Crisco, suspecting that you got lucky the first time around with the smaller cake. Alternatively, would you consider airbrushing the desired color onto plain white fondant, rather than mixing it in?

-Ron


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