Fondant is a mixture of sugar and water used as a confection, filling, or icing. Sometimes

gelatin Gelatin or gelatine () is a translucent, colorless, flavorless food ingredient, commonly derived from collagen taken from animal body parts. It is brittle when dry and rubbery when moist. It may also be referred to as hydrolyzed collagen, coll ...

and

glycerine Glycerol () is a simple triol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, sweet-tasting, viscous liquid. The glycerol backbone is found in lipids known as glycerides. It is also widely used as a sweetener in the food industry and as a humectant in ...

are used as softeners or stabilizers. There are numerous varieties of fondant, with the most basic being poured fondant. Others include

fondant icing Fondant icing, also commonly just called fondant (, ; ), is an icing used to decorate or sculpt cakes and pastries. It is made from sugar, water, gelatin, vegetable oil or shortening, and glycerol. It does not have the texture of most icings; ...

, chocolate fondant, and honey fondant.

Poured fondant

''Poured fondant'' is a creamy confection used as a filling or coating for

cakes Cake is a flour confection usually made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elabora ...

pastries Pastry refers to a variety of doughs (often enriched with fat or eggs), as well as the sweet and savoury baked goods made from them. The dough may be accordingly called pastry dough for clarity. Sweetened pastries are often described as '' bak ...

, and candies or

sweets Candy, alternatively called sweets or lollies, is a confection that features sugar as a principal ingredient. The category, also called ''sugar confectionery'', encompasses any sweet confection, including chocolate, chewing gum, and sugar can ...

. In its simplest form, it is

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...

and

water Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...

. Sometimes it is stabilized with

and

. It is cooked to the soft-ball stage, cooled slightly, and stirred or beaten to incorporate air, until it is an opaque mass with a creamy consistency. Sometimes lemon or vanilla is added to the mixture for taste. Other flavorings are used as well, as are various colorings. An example of its use is the

Cadbury Creme Egg Cadbury Creme Egg (originally named Fry's Creme Egg) is a chocolate confection produced in the shape of an egg. It was launched by the British chocolatier Fry's in 1963 before being renamed under sister brand Cadbury's in 1971. The product con ...

, the filling of which is

inverted sugar syrup Inverted sugar syrup is a syrup mixture of the monosaccharides glucose and fructose, made by splitting disaccharide sucrose. This mixture's optical rotation is opposite to that of the original sugar, which is why it is called an ''invert'' sug ...

, produced by processing fondant with

invertase β-Fructofuranosidase is an enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis (breakdown) of the table sugar sucrose into fructose and glucose. Sucrose is a fructoside. Alternative names for β-fructofuranosidase include invertase, saccharase, glucosucrase ...

. Fondant fancies are a type of cake typically coated in poured fondant.

Physical chemistry of poured fondant

Poured fondant is formed by supersaturating water with

sucrose Sucrose, a disaccharide, is a sugar composed of glucose and fructose subunits. It is produced naturally in plants and is the main constituent of white sugar. It has the molecular formula . For human consumption, sucrose is extracted and refined ...

. More than twice as much sugar dissolves in water at the

boiling point The boiling point of a substance is the temperature at which the vapor pressure of a liquid equals the pressure surrounding the liquid and the liquid changes into a vapor. The boiling point of a liquid varies depending upon the surrounding envi ...

as at room temperature. After the sucrose dissolves, if the solution is left to cool undisturbed, the sugar remains dissolved in a supersaturated solution until

nucleation In thermodynamics, nucleation is the first step in the formation of either a new Phase (matter), thermodynamic phase or Crystal structure, structure via self-assembly or self-organization within a substance or mixture. Nucleation is typically def ...

occurs. While the solution is supersaturated, if a

seed crystal A seed crystal is a small piece of single crystal or polycrystal material from which a large crystal of typically the same material is grown in a laboratory. Used to replicate material, the use of seed crystal to promote growth avoids the otherwi ...

(undissolved sucrose) is put into the mix or if the solution is agitated, the dissolved sucrose

crystallizes Crystallization is a process that leads to solids with highly organized atoms or molecules, i.e. a crystal. The ordered nature of a crystalline solid can be contrasted with amorphous solids in which atoms or molecules lack regular organization ...

to form large, crunchy crystals (which is how

rock candy Rock candy or sugar candy, also called rock sugar or crystal sugar, is a type of confection composed of relatively large sugar crystals. In some parts of the world, local variations are called Misri, nabat or navat. This candy is formed b ...

is made). However, if the solution is left to cool undisturbed and is then stirred vigorously, it forms many tiny crystals, resulting in a smooth-textured fondant.

References

{{wiktionary, fondant Confectionery

Poured fondant

Physical chemistry of poured fondant

See also

References