How to Attach a Fondant to a Cake

Fondant is recognizable for its satin-like texture.

Create a professional-looking dessert by using fondant over your homemade cake. Fondant is a sugar-based confection that can be rolled onto cakes for an ultra smooth finish or pressed into shapes like edible play dough. Professional bakers use fondant for wedding cakes or expertly decorated celebration desserts, and you can attach fondant to your cake with ease.

Things You'll Need

• Cooled cake on a platter
• Buttercream frosting
• Frosting knife or spatula
• Fondant
• Rolling pin
• Knife
• Colored fondant
• 2-inch round fondant cutter
• Fine brush

Instructions

Rolled

1. 

   A crumb coat is the first thin layer of frosting.

   Frost your cooled homemade cake on a platter with buttercream frosting using a frosting knife or spatula to prepare your cake for rolled fondant. Spread a thin layer of buttercream over the entire cake to create a crumb coat, which just holds the crumbs onto the cake.

2. Refrigerate your cake for one hour to chill the crumb coat. Roll out your fondant on a smooth surface with a rolling pin until it is approximately a 15-inch square and one-fourth of an inch thick for a 10-inch round cake or smaller. Fondant that is too thick will tear from its own weight.

3. Remove the cake from the refrigerator. Hold the fondant with your rolling pin and slide it onto your cake centrally. The fondant should lay over the entire cake or you need to gently move it around until everything is covered.

4. Trim excess rolled fondant around the bottom perimeter of the cake with a knife.

Fondant Shapes

1. Knead colored fondant to form 3-D shapes to decorate your cake. Roll it into a ball that is 1-inch wide. Form approximately 40 1-inch balls to surround the bottom of the cake.

2. Press a ball onto the bottom of your cake, so it sits on the platter and just touches the bottom of the cake. This hides the rolled fondant edge. Add another ball next to the first one. Continue adding more balls around the entire bottom perimeter or circumference of the cake.

3. Roll colored fondant with a rolling pin until it is one-fourth of an inch thick to create dot shapes to attach onto the cake. Cut out circle shapes with a 2-inch, round fondant cutter.

4. Brush a circle shape with a slightly damp fine brush. Press the brushed side onto the cake to form a dot onto the cake. A small amount of water acts like an adhesive for the fondant, especially if you are applying fondant onto fondant.

5. Brush more fondant circles and place them all over the cake so they look like dots.

Tips & Warnings

• Sprinkle corn starch or powdered sugar onto your hands and work surface if your fondant is too sticky.

• Work with the fondant in a cool room and on a cool surface.

• Gum paste glue can also be used as an adhesive.

• If you have tears or cracks, your fondant may be too dry. Add a small amount of vegetable shortening on your fingers and rub out cracks in the fondant.

• Do not add too much water to your fondant because water dissolves it.