Black Marshmallow Fondant: Badass and Tasty

A few months ago I made marshmallow fondant for the first time. I was also making my first tierd cake. My friends who were getting married have the utmost confidence in my baking skills, despite the fact that I had never done anything remotely like making a wedding cake. God bless them. It was a fairly low key wedding but I had a lot to do (as the only bridesmaid, cake maker, bridesmaid dress maker, and brides makeup artist). The cake was my wedding gift to them and I decided to make them a Star Trek themed cake (yes, we are all nerds) to match the Star Trek themed invitations that the bride's artist father had made. Sadly, I do not have quality photos to show you of this endeavor but I'll slap my crappy snapshots up here so you'll get the idea.

Check that out. Awesome right? I made the topper on there too (out of sculpey, not fondant. I cheated a little).

Naturally, the first time I make fondant I decide I want it in the two hardest colors to get right, red and black. The red involved dumping nearly two jars of Wilton food coloring in with the marshmallow fondant and then some more until it finally wasn't pink. Grey fondant wasn't going to fly, so I had to try something even more intense for the black parts. Here's how you do it:

Marshmallow fondant is fondants tastier and easier to make cousin. Your basic marshmallow fondant recipe involves a bag of mini-marshmallows, a little bit of water, and powdered sugar. You dump the marshmallows in a bowl with a tiny bit of water and throw it in the microwave for 30 second intervals, stirring in between rounds until the marshmallows are melty and gooey. Then you stir in powdered sugar until you get the consistency you want. Easy enough. Black fondant requires going a step further and adding another special ingredient: chocolate chips.


Black Marshmallow Fondant:
- 6 oz. of semi sweet chocolate chips (white for light colors, milk choc. for dark) (about half of a bag)
- 1 16 oz. bag of mini marshmallows
- 3 tbsp. of clear Karo syrup
- 3 tbsp. water
- 1 1lb. bag of powdered sugar + 1-2 Cups
- gel black (or other dark) food coloring and paste
- Crisco

1. Dump your marshmallows in a microwave safe bowl and add the water then microwave for 30 second intervals, stirring between intervals until the marshmallows are melted (approx. 2 minutes)
2. Add the chocolate chips and stir until the chips are melted. Pop back in the microwave if you need to.
3. Add the karo syrup and stir in with a butter knife. The syrup is not used in regular marshmallow fondant, it appears in this recipe to keep the chocolate from hardening to much to use.
4. Add 1-2 tspns of black gel color (as much as needed to get your mixture good and black) and mix it in.
5. Add about half of your powdered sugar and stir. Your mixture will start thickening and becoming doughy and look like this:

Keep stirring! It will become black again!
6. Add the rest of the powdered sugar to the bowl. Grease your hands and the counter liberally with the crisco and kneed in the rest of the powdered sugar. At the end you should get this:

To store your fondant coat it with a layer of crisco, wrap it in plastic wrap and keep it in an airtight container in the refrigerator. When you are ready to work with the black fondant you may need to pop it in the microwave for a few seconds to soften it up. Regular marshmallow fondant can be warmed up enough to use in your hands, but the chocolate gets much stiffer and sometimes needs a little help.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is the most badass baking I have ever done. Also, marshmallow fondant is pretty tasty so don't be surprised if people (especially kids) eat it instead of peeling it off the cake (like most do with regular fondant).