How to make Black LMF Fondant

How to make Black LMF Fondant

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If you love making LMF fondant (who doesn’t love stretchy, tasty, inexpensive homemade marshmallow fondant?) then you’ll definitely love the black counterpart. Making black (or red or dark purple or any other dark color) can be tricky but this video on how to make black fondant breaks it all down for you in a few easy steps. You could just buy pre-made black fondant but for some reason, pre-made colored fondant is so much more expensive. It really is super easy to make, I promise!

Chalkboard cakes are super popular right now. It all begins with a beautiful black fondant! If you want to make a pretty chalkboard cake like this one, you can purchase my online class all about chalkboard cakes and rustic birch cakes!

You might be asking, “why can’t I just add a bunch of black food color to my white fondant?” Well the short answer is you can, the long answer is you can if you want to have a sticky soft mess on your hands and a lot of WTF moments that most likely end with you lobbing said sticky mess of fondant across the room in frustration.

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The first thing we need to do is gather our ingredients and our tools.

Recipe
2 lbs sifted powdered sugar (you may not use all the powered sugar depending on your area, that is okay)

1 lb mini marshmallows (Hy-Top, Walmart brand or Haribo Brand if you can find it)

1 Tbsp water (use only 1 Tbsp if it is very humid in your area)

 

1 Tbsp black food color gel (americolor is what I use but wilton or any other brand is ok too)

1/2 cup shortening (white vegetable fat or trex)

About 1.25 lbs of Wilton fondant (if you buy the 5 lb box, use one half of one of the packages, if you buy the 1.5 lb box, use the whole package) I use my 50% or 40% off coupon to purchase my fondant at Michaels or Joanns so that the overall cost of my fondant is less. You can get these coupons online, with the app or in the newspaper.

Extra powered sugar (for kneading)

Tools Needed: Stand Mixer Large plastic bowl Spatula Dough hook for mixer

FAQ
You can make this by hand if you do not have a stand mixer. All you need is your muscles :-D
You can melt the marshmallows over a double-boiler if you don’t have a microwave
I prefer black americolor gel for my food color
You can half this recipe if you only need a little black
Store in a ziplock bag at room temp for months. Head and re-knead well before each use.
You might not use all the powdered sugar in the final kneading depending on the humidity in your area and that is ok

  • Linda Bonnette

    Hi Liz! I made this fondant for a blackboard cake after I found it difficult to paint on Fondarific. Your fondant is really nice, however I am worried because it seems to stay soft for a long time. I’m making a double barrel cake and wonder if your fondant recipe will work for this application. I planned to use it over buttercream. I am hoping to chill the fondant and then wrap the cake but am concerned it the fondant will sag. Have you used it for tall cakes? Thanks for any words of wisdom.

    • http://www.artisancakecompany.com/ Elizabeth Marek

      Yes I use LMF for all my cakes. It does stay soft, that’s part of what makes it so yummy. If you’re placing fondant over chilled buttercream or stiff ABC or chilled ganache it shouldn’t sag

  • Victoria Frederick

    Help!! I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, I have been pulling for 10 mins and it’s a mess. Looks like when you put too much tylose into fondant…

  • Siobhan

    i had to use the wilton black and im not sure what happened nor why but it is not stretching.it is very tight and not really pliable like the red and white i just made.i have microwaved it and kneaded for a while now and it is cracking..can anyone help please on what i should do?maybe warm up more wilton and knead that in?i’ve rubbed crisco running out of ideas and need help fast.may i please have some assistance?thank you in advance.

  • Clarissa Taylor

    Hi Liz! I just tried making the black fondant twice, and it didn’t turn black at the end. It’s very dark gray. I added a tablespoon and a half. I’ve made white and other colors with this recipe and they turned out fine, but the black isn’t black. Help?

  • Tieara

    Hi can u please tell me wat I did wrong, mine didnt come out stretchy like that

  • Tieara

    How much fondant does this recipe make? Thank you

    • http://www.artisancakecompany.com/ Elizabeth Marek

      about 5 lbs

  • Cheryl

    Do you use this for all your fondant decorating?

    • http://www.artisancakecompany.com/ Elizabeth Marek

      Yep!

  • Tina France Robinson

    This was very helpful! Thanks for the share.

  • debbers

    Liz – I just noticed that the list of ingredients lists 2 Tbl water and no coloring. Just thought you’d like to update the recipe list so that it’s similar to your Red fondant recipe post. Love LMF! Only fondant that I’ll use. Tastes great too. :)

    • http://www.artisancakecompany.com/ Elizabeth Marek

      Oh shoot thank you!

  • Caro

    Fabulous recipe. Thank you so much. How much tylose do you add when making figures?

  • James Mundy

    I am having a hard time with this. I don’t know what is going wrong. I made the white using the recipe first and had problems, I watched the LMF video and seen that I was doing it right and still had problems. I decided to try one more time with the black fondant version and so I watched that video and seen that you said to stretch it like taffy. Well I mixed everything just like the video and then after kneading in the bowl I started to try and stretch the fondant and it would just rip apart. I kept putting it back together and trying to stretch it out but it kept falling apart. It never got to a point where I could stretch the whole thing and get it all working together. Can you please help to let me know where I might be going wrong?

  • Jack-and Betty Critchlow

    where is information on how much color to use? Thanks …BETTY

  • Belinda Parker

    I use the Wilton color gel. How much of this color would I add to the mix? I love your tutorials. Thanks so much. I am new to cake decorating.

  • denise

    Hi Elizabeth when you say wilton fondant do you mean the white or the black and thx for the tutorial you are awesome

    • http://www.artisancakecompany.com/ Elizabeth Marek

      white

      • Tracy

        Could you use the black? Thank you so much for your video on this! I’m new to cake decorating and these really help when I don’t know if I’m doing things correctly! :-)

        • http://www.artisancakecompany.com/ Elizabeth Marek

          I suppose you could but you don’t need to

  • The_pagey

    Hi, I’m in the UK and it’s not so easy to get wilton fondant. Have you tested with any other brands?

    • http://www.artisancakecompany.com/ Elizabeth Marek

      Yes any brand will work

      • The_pagey

        Thanks. :)

    • Caro

      I used Sainsbury’s & it worked a treat.

  • Sharon Carpenter

    Do you have any ideas for a My Little Pony cake topper? I have the design except for the My Little Pony figure.

  • Letty

    Hello, can you add flavoring to this?

    • http://www.artisancakecompany.com/ Elizabeth Marek

      sure can, it already had a pretty strong vanilla flavor though from the marshmallows

      • Letty

        Thanks! I usually use Kraft Puff Marshmallows, but I will definitely give the store brand a try after listening to what you said. :)

  • helene

    I absolutely love your recipes. The best fondant I’ve ever used hands down. I just struggled with it being hard to use after I’ve stored it for a while. It was very crumbly and needed a lot of shortening and microwaving. Is that normal? What am I doing wrong?

    • http://www.artisancakecompany.com/ Elizabeth Marek

      Try leaving out a couple cups of the powdered sugar. You might be in a more dry environment. My fondant is always very hard and needs to be warmed and kneaded well before each use to condition it.

      • helene

        Thanks…

        Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

  • Rosie Eder

    I am so thankful you decided to release this out of this world fondant recipe to the world. Before this I made MMF and it always came out in bad shape. It would have big chunks of powered sugar in it that I couldn’t get out and it would tear unless I made it super thick. Which isn’t good. I just love it. ☺️☺️

    • http://www.artisancakecompany.com/ Elizabeth Marek

      Thank you Rosie! I’m so very glad you like it!!

  • Holly

    I know you mention that pre-colored fondant is expensive, but if I had some black Wilton fondant already could I add that to this recipe instead of mixing in the plain white? Should I decrease the amount of black Americlolor that I add if so? Thanks so much for this great tutorial!!

    • http://www.artisancakecompany.com/ Elizabeth Marek

      If you already have some black then by all means use it :) I would reduce my color by half :)

  • J M

    Wish you had a vegetarian (not necessarily vegan) version, using marshmallow fluff. Marshmallows use gelatin, marshmallow fluff does not. Thank you.