Fondant Cookies

Cookie Craft defines fondant as, "...a broadly used term referring to confectioners made from sugar syrup and used for decorating baked goods or filling candies" (Fryer and Peterson 111). However, the way I described it to my little brother was, "basically sugar Play-Doh."

Anyone with a brain could assume that the decorating technique I used this time was using fondant--and they would be correct. Fondant is extremely easy to work with, and can be sculpted into, rolled on top of a different color of fondant to create a pattern, or just used to cover a cookie (Fryer and Peterson 111-112). 

Piping simple hearts onto the fondant

My book, Cookie Craft, suggests that you have multiple colors of fondant. However, we only had white fondant, so I used that, and, afterwards, I used some simple pipe outlines and flooding to add some color to the cookies. Since the fondant was not already rolled out, I had to do that with a rolling pin. That was both harder and easier than I expected it to be. Fondant is pretty soft and malleable, so it wasn't very hard to roll out. However, the fondant got increasingly sticky, which made it a little challenging to roll out. 

The cookie cutters I used for the fondant

Since the cookies that I decorated were just blobs (the cookie cutters didn't work on the recipe), I couldn't really cut the fondant out to match the shape of the cookie. So, I just cut out some simple shapes from the fondant and placed them on the cookies. 

One thing I noticed while doing this was that fondant doesn't stick very well to the cookie. It actually falls off really easily. So, part of the purpose of me outline piping and flooding the cookies was not just to add color and enhance the cookie, but also the kind of bolt down the fondant.

One of the decorations with fondant I did was similar to one in my book. The technique is called "Creating Contrasting Shapes with Rolled Fondant," and is basically cutting a shape out of one color of fondant (with a cookie cutter), and then cutting another shape out of that piece of fondant with a smaller cookie cutter. Then, you cut the same shape of the smaller fondant in the first piece of fondant, except in a different color. The last step is to fill the hole of the larger piece of fondant with the coordinating shape of the smaller piece, and rolling over the fondant with a rolling pin so that the pieces appear seamless (Fryer and Peterson 112). However, as previously mentioned, I only had white fondant. So, I improvised by flooding the cutout in the middle of the fondant with icing.

Flooding the cutout

While working with fondant, I learned that it is probably a lot easier and more professional-looking using fondant on cookies that have been cut with a cookie cutter, and that are flat on top. Since the cookies I decorated were just blobs, they were kind of lumpy on top, making it hard to make the fondant look smooth and professional. Another thing I learned is that, sometimes, the actual recipe can be manipulated and changed without severely changing the outcome. This is what I felt like happened using flood icing in the middle of my fondant cutouts, as I feel they actually turned out pretty well.

Before frosting

The finished product

What things have you improvised with before, that turned out just as good as the intended product?

Fryer, Janice, and Valerie Peterson. <i>Cookie Craft</i>. Pownal, VT: Storey, 2008. Print.