How to Make Fondant Decorations

Updated September 2026 · Baking Resources

The trick to how to make fondant decorations that hold their shape is not skill, it's chemistry plus patience. Knead a small amount of tylose powder into your fondant, shape the piece thin, then dry it over a former that holds the curve while it sets. Plain fondant on its own stays soft and slumps, no matter how carefully you shaped it.

A rough working ratio: about 1 teaspoon of tylose per 250 g of fondant for flowers and standing pieces, half that for figures. Give the shaped piece 24 hours before you ask it to hold anything up.

That's the whole job. Everything below is the detail that makes it repeatable instead of lucky.

Updated September 2026

Fondant work runs on a short list of unglamorous ingredients. Our free baking substitutions tool gives exact ratios for 41 baking ingredients, corn syrup, shortening, cornstarch and powdered sugar included, so when the jar you need is empty at 10pm you have a swap that actually behaves the same.

Why plain fondant will not hold a shape

Fondant is built to be soft. It's sugar, water, a fat and a binder, engineered to stretch over a cake without tearing and stay pleasant to eat for days. Every property that makes it good at covering makes it bad at standing up.

Left alone, a fondant petal droops. A bow loop closes. A standing figure's arms creep downward overnight. The piece isn't drying wrong, it's doing exactly what soft sugar dough does under gravity.

To fix that you change one of two things: the recipe, or the support.

Change the recipe by adding a gum. Tylose (also sold as CMC powder or Gum-Tex) makes fondant set firm and brittle as it dries instead of staying pliable. Gum tragacanth does the same job and works slower.

Change the support by drying the piece in the shape you want, propped by a former, a foam pad, a piece of dry spaghetti or a skewer, so gravity is fighting the support instead of the fondant.

Almost every decoration uses both. That's the real answer.

Fondant, gum paste, or a 50/50 mix

The three options are not interchangeable, and picking wrong is the most common reason a project fails before it starts.

If you're going to keep one system, keep fondant plus tylose. It handles most of what a home decorator needs, and you can mix it a batch at a time from fondant you already have.

Tylose ratios that actually work

Measure by weight, not by eye. Too little and the piece slumps, too much and it cracks while you're still shaping it.

Two rules make this work.

Knead it in fully, then rest it. Tylose needs time to hydrate. Fondant that feels barely changed right after kneading will be noticeably firmer an hour later, and if you shape immediately you'll add more tylose than you needed and end up with a cracking, crumbly dough.

Work in small batches. Only mix tylose into the fondant you're using in the next few hours. Anything left over gets progressively harder to soften.

How to make fondant decorations: the working method

Here's the sequence for almost any piece, from a simple star to a standing figure.

1. Grease, don't dust, your hands. A thin film of shortening on your palms keeps fondant from sticking without drying it out. Cornstarch on your hands dries the surface, and dry surfaces crack.
2. Knead the piece warm before you shape it. Twenty to thirty seconds of working brings the fondant to body temperature and makes it stretch instead of tear. Cold fondant straight from the tub cracks at every fold.
3. Color first, gum second. Kneading color in after the tylose has hydrated is much harder work, and it stresses the surface.
4. Roll or shape thinner than feels right. Thin dries. Thick stays soft in the center for weeks, weighs too much for its own supports, and is unpleasant to eat.
5. Keep everything you're not touching covered. A scrap of fondant under plastic stays workable. The same scrap on the bench skins over in about five minutes.
6. Support the shape while it dries. Former, foam, spaghetti, skewer, crumpled foil, whatever holds the curve you want.
7. Dry on a non-stick surface with airflow underneath where you can. A foam pad or a cooling rack beats a plate.
8. Turn flat pieces after the first several hours so both faces lose water evenly. Skip this and they curl.

That's the method. The variations below are the same eight steps with different supports.

Drying forms and supports, piece by piece

A former is anything that holds the shape while the fondant firms. Half of them are already in your kitchen.

• Curved petals: the back of a spoon, an egg carton cup, or a fondant petal tray. Petals dried flat look like paper cut-outs.
• Flowers with a center: dry the petals first, assemble on a wired or fondant center, then dry the assembly another two days.
• Bow loops: stuff each loop with a rolled ball of parchment or a wad of tissue and leave it in until the loop is hard. Loops dried empty close up.
• Standing figures: a piece of dry uncooked spaghetti through the body into the legs, or a skewer if the piece is heavy. Dry spaghetti is edible, which is why decorators like it, but it is still a choking hazard for small children and you should say so when you hand the cake over.
• Arms, ears and anything sticking out: support with crumpled foil or a folded piece of parchment until firm, then remove the prop.
• Ruffles: drape over a rolling pin, a paper towel tube, or a folded strip of foil to keep the wave.
• Plaques and toppers: flat on parchment, flipped halfway, weighted at nothing. Weighting a drying plaque prints the weight into it.
• Anything wired: the wire is not edible, must never be pushed into the cake bare, and comes out before the cake is cut. Post a note with it.

Attaching pieces to each other

Fondant does not stick to dry fondant. It needs a wet layer that dissolves both surfaces slightly and then dries.

The most common attachment mistake is too much water. A wet brush on a dried petal dissolves the surface, leaves a shiny scar and bleeds the color. Load the brush and then wipe most of it off on the rim of the pot.

For anything heavy, use royal icing and give it real time. A fondant figure attached with water at 9am will be lying down by noon.

Worked example: a bow for an 8 inch cake

Say you're topping an 8 inch cake with a fondant bow of ten loops plus two tails.

Fondant needed. Rolled fondant weighs about 320 g per cup, and a bow this size uses roughly 200 to 250 g including the scraps you'll trim. Buy it as part of your covering order rather than separately: our frosting calculator puts an 8 inch two-layer cake at about 670 g of rolled fondant for the covering itself, so you're looking at roughly 900 g of fondant for the whole job.

Gum. 250 g of fondant takes 1 teaspoon of tylose for bow work. Knead it in, wrap it, and walk away for an hour.

Shaping. Roll the fondant to about 1/8 inch, cut ten strips roughly 1 1/2 inches wide by 6 inches long. Brush a dot of water at one end of a strip, fold it over into a loop, pinch the base. Stuff the loop with rolled parchment.

Drying. Loops sit on their pinched base on a foam pad for 48 hours. The parchment stays in for the first 24. Tails get draped over a folded strip of foil so they curve.

Assembly. On day three, build the bow on a small disc of fondant using royal icing at every join, starting with the outer ring of loops and working in. Let the assembled bow dry another day before it goes near a cake.

Total elapsed time: four days. Actual hands-on time: under an hour. That gap is exactly why decorations get made ahead, and once the bow is hard, how to store fondant decorations covers keeping it that way for the four to six weeks a bow will hold.

Common problems while you're modeling

The fondant cracks as I shape it. It's too dry, too cold, or over-gummed. Knead in a very small smear of shortening and warm it in your hands. If you've already gone heavy on tylose, knead in a little untreated fondant to dilute it.

The surface goes dry and rough in seconds. Your kitchen is dry or your hands are dusted with cornstarch. Switch to shortening on your hands and keep every scrap covered.

Everything sticks to me. Too warm, too much shortening, or the fondant is genuinely too soft. Chill your hands under cold water and dry them, and give the fondant fifteen minutes on the bench under plastic.

My figure's head sinks into its body. No internal support. Spaghetti or a skewer through the body, and let the body firm up for several hours before the head goes on.

Colors look muddy. Gel color kneads in without adding water, which is why it's the standard for fondant. Liquid color adds moisture that makes fondant sticky and dulls the shade. There's a full breakdown in gel vs liquid food coloring, including how much of each a batch of fondant takes.

Fingerprints everywhere. Handle firm pieces by their edges and bases, and give a modeled piece a final smooth with a shortening-greased fingertip before you set it down to dry.

Sizing decorations to the cake

Decorations that are technically perfect can still look wrong because they're the wrong size for the tier. A rough guide that holds up:

Odd numbers of flowers read better than even ones, and a cluster of three sizes looks more natural than a cluster all cut from the same cutter.

Always make more than you need. Figure on a 20 percent loss between breakage, drying failures and the two you'll decide you don't like.

Frequently asked questions

What is tylose powder and do I really need it?

Tylose (also sold as CMC or Gum-Tex) is a food safe thickener that makes fondant dry firm and brittle instead of staying soft. You need it for anything that has to stand, curve, or hold weight. Flat cut-outs used the same day can skip it.

Can I make fondant decorations without gum paste?

Yes. Fondant with tylose kneaded into it does nearly everything gum paste does, and it tastes better. Gum paste only wins for very thin, very delicate work like realistic rose petals, where you need a material that rolls to paper thinness and sets fast.

How thin should I roll fondant for decorations?

About 1/8 inch for bows, plaques and sturdy cut-outs, and as thin as 1/16 inch for petals and ruffles. Thinner dries faster, weighs less and looks better. If your sheet keeps cracking as it thins out, how to roll fondant without cracking walks through kneading, dusting and surface choice.

How long do fondant decorations take to dry?

Flat pieces firm up in 12 to 24 hours, flowers and bows want 24 to 48 hours on a former, and modeled figures take 5 to 7 days to firm on the surface and never fully dry in the middle. Damp weather can double all of those.

What can I use to stick fondant decorations together?

A barely damp brush of water for fresh fondant, edible glue made from tylose and water for dried pieces, and royal icing for anything heavy or structural. Too much water dissolves the surface and bleeds the color, so wipe the brush before it touches the piece.

Why do my fondant flowers keep flattening out?

They dried lying flat instead of curved, or they had no gum in them. Dry petals in a spoon, an egg carton cup or a petal former so they hold a cup shape, and use 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons of tylose per 250 g of fondant for flower work.

Can I make fondant decorations the night before?

You can make them, but they will not be dry. Anything that has to stand up or be moved needs a full day at minimum, and a bow needs two. If the event is tomorrow, stick to flat cut-outs laid straight onto the cake.

Where to go next

Making a decoration and keeping it are two different skills, and both matter. Once the pieces are hard, how to store fondant decorations covers drying times, airtight storage and the reason the fridge destroys them. If the trouble starts earlier, at the sheet you're cutting from, how to roll fondant without cracking is the one to read first. And if you're covering the cake as well as decorating it, how to frost a cake covers the buttercream or ganache layer that fondant has to stick to.