Quick Answer
There are many ways you can dry fondant more quickly. These include rolling it more thinly, drying it with an oven light, using a table lamp, or drying decorative pieces separately. You can also try using a fan, a hair dryer, or a food dehydrator, or add a drying agent when you make the fondant.
If you want your cakes to look their best and like they were made by professionals, then learning how to use fondant is a necessity.
Fondant is a form of icing that can be used to decorate cakes in a variety of ways but to use it correctly, it will need to be dry. You can air dry fondant, but there are also several ways to dry fondant fast.
In this article, we will look at eight simple ways to dry fondant. Once dry, you can then use it to create stunning cakes that your friends and family are sure to love.
How Long Does Fondant Take To Dry?
Before we look at ways to dry fondant fast, let’s look at why we need these methods.
Fondant is made by supersaturating water with sucrose. As it is made with so much water, it is naturally a wet substance and will need some time to dry out.
When left out at room temperature, fondant will naturally dry in around 24 to 30 hours. This will take longer if the weather is humid and it should not be refrigerated or frozen.
As fondant takes so long to dry naturally, many cooks prefer to speed up the process to ensure their fondant dries more quickly.
How To Dry Fondant Fast
Now we know why fondant needs to dry and how long it takes, we can look at some methods to make it dry faster.
You can use any of these methods or even some of them in combination, depending on your preference.
1. Roll It As Thinly As Possible
If you have wet clothes and no clothes dryer to hand, then you will undoubtedly spread out your clothes on a washing line instead of leaving them bunched up.
Spreading them out doesn’t just avoid wrinkles but will also help them dry more quickly, and this is the same with fondant.
Instead of leaving your fondant in a big ball or thick layer to dry, roll it out so that it is thinner. This will help it dry more quickly.
If the fondant is rolled thickly, or not rolled at all, the center of the fondant will remain soft and won’t have as much chance to dry as the parts exposed to the air.
This will make it more difficult to work with the fondant when you need to decorate the cake.
Make sure that you roll your fondant as thin as you can so that all of it has the chance to dry.
If you’re going to be decorating your cake with decorations made from fondant, you can cut them and leave them to dry.
The thinner and smaller your fondant is, the quicker it will dry. You can leave them on a grid rack to dry as well so that they’re exposed to air from all angles.
2. Dry It With An Oven Light
Many ovens have a light inside that can be switched on and off as needed and this can be a great way to dry fondant fast.
Line a cookie sheet with some parchment paper and then roll out your fondant before placing it on the cookie sheet. You can then put the sheet underneath the oven light.
It will depend on how thin your fondant has been rolled, but this method can see your fondant dry out in around an hour!
However, just make sure that the oven isn’t accidentally switched on. You’re not baking the fondant but are just putting it underneath a light.
3. Use A Table Lamp
This is a similar process to the previous method and is ideal if you don’t have a light in your oven.
You don’t need a special table lamp or a high-wattage bulb for this, either. An ordinary lamp will do the job perfectly as you don’t want the bulb to be too strong.
You don’t need to place the fondant too close to the bulb. Instead, think about how close an oven light would be to the center rack of the oven and try to match this distance.
As this can be done with any table lamp, you don’t need to use the kitchen. If you have a lot of fondant to dry out and enough table lamps, you can have fondant drying around the house!
If rolled thinly enough, the fondant should dry in around an hour. It could take two to three hours for larger and thicker pieces or if the humidity is too high.
If your kitchen humidity is too high because of other things you’ve cooked, consider using your living room instead.
4. Dry Pieces Separately
If you’re using the fondant to make decorative pieces, you can cut these pieces and dry them separately. Once they’re dry, you can then assemble them.
This works well because it makes the fondant smaller, so it speeds up the drying process. Plus, if you assemble decorations before they’re dry, they can become cracked as they dry out.
5. Use A Fan
Exposing as much fondant as possible to the air helps speed the drying process and by using a fan, you can move the air around even better.
Roll out your fondant and place it on waxed paper on a cookie sheet. Place a fan nearby and let the breeze from the fan wash over your fondant.
It will take a few hours for the fondant to dry like this, but it will be quicker than leaving the fondant without a fan.
6. Use A Hair Dryer
This method is best reserved for fondant and decorations that have already been placed on the cake.
If you put your fondant on the cake and realize it isn’t as dry as you thought, a hair dryer can save you some problems.
The hair dryer should be set to either cool or low heat and shouldn’t be used on any high heat settings. Make sure it is always at least six inches above the fondant as well.
You should move the hair dryer around so that the air circulates and it isn’t concentrated on any single part of the fondant for too long.
7. Use A Food Dehydrator
Although they’re not a common kitchen appliance, food dehydrators are becoming a little more common thanks to multi-purpose appliances such as some models of the Ninja Foodi.
If you do have a food dehydrator in your kitchen, then you can use this to dry your fondant in around a tenth of the time it would usually take.
8. Add A Drying Agent When You Make The Fondant
Our final method for drying fondant fast is to add a drying agent to the fondant itself.
Two of the most common drying agents are gum paste and tylose and these will help your fondant naturally dry more quickly.
When you work with fondant, you should always use cornstarch on your surfaces and hands to help keep it dry and remove any excess moisture.
Final Thoughts
In this article, we listed eight simple ways to dry fondant fast. Most of the methods don’t require any special equipment and can be used in any kitchen by any cook.
We also suggested adding a drying agent to your fondant when you make it to help the fondant dry more quickly.
Whichever of these methods you choose, we hope it helps you dry your fondant fast and helps you to make some beautiful and delicious cakes.
Through this blog I hope to help others learn the basics and more intricate details of cooking. I know from personal experience how frustrating it can be to cook a meal, only to realize you are missing one ingredient from your list. This is why I love to write articles chatting readers through some great substitutes that can be used in an emergency.
I hope you will find this blog useful, and that it will help you to develop your culinary skills, to help you cook up a storm!
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