I love making things from play-doh! When I heard that I could do the same thing to make edible Christmas decorations from fondant icing, I was very excited. We bought some ready-to-roll fondant and marzipan from the supermarket and made lots of decorations and gifts. Here is a simple recipe to make your own fondant:

Fondant Dough recipe

Sift 500g of icing sugar into a bowl and mix  with 3 tsp lemon juice and 1 egg white ( use organic egg or powered egg-white and follow the instruction on the packaging). Stir with a flat wooden spoon until you  get a smooth, thick dough. If you need more colours, divide the dough in different bowls and add food coloring to them (and flavourings too!). Roll it out on a cold surface (dust it with some icing sugar and you’re ready to stamp out some shapes.

If you  want to use ready-to roll or ready-rolled  fondant mixture, follow the instructions on the packaging.

Making fondant/marzipan decorations

Use the fondant dough the same way you use play-doh or clay. You can make 2D or 3D shapes and motifs.

2D decorations

This is very easy:

• Just roll out the fondant or marzipan to a 5 mm thick sheet, then stamp out Christmas shapes –  such as a star, snowman, Christmas tree, bell, angel, moon and so on. Use cookie cutters or play-dough cutters. If you want to hang them, push out a hole through near the top with a straw.
• Place them flat on a sheet of foil. Wet them slightly with a brush or your finger, then sprinkle edible glitter, silver balls, sugar balls &/or granulated sugar on top.
• Let them dry for a few hours, then hang them with a piece of string  or ribbon on the Christmas tree or around your home.

3D decorations

You can make all sorts of decorations – for example elfs, Santas, snowmen, angels, penguins, angels or polar bears which make lovely cake or cupcake decorations – and they also look nice on the dining table, shelves, on a mantelpiece, or as part  of a Christmas wreath!  Here are a few very easy ones:

Christmas tree: stamp out 2 tree shape pieces from rolled out white or green fondant dough. Cut one in half down the trunk, then use some water to make the icing sticky where you just cut and ‘glue’ the half-trees at right-angles to the middle of each side of the whole tree. When your tree is ready to stand, decorate it with candy, edible glitter, icing pen etc. You can use . Snowman:make two balls of white fondant, one slightly bigger than the other.  Make a hat, scarf shapes from coloured fondant (you can use ribbons too, if you don’t want to eat them!!). Wet the bottom of the smaller ball with water and push it onto the bigger  one, then dress the snowman up. Draw eyes, buttons with an icing or chocolate pencil. Bauble: shape some balls between your palms. Wet and  rotate them in edible glitter, sugar or desiccated coconut, or you can dip them in food dye. Wrap them in pieces of silky materials or tissue paper and tie with ribbon. These make beautiful Christmas tree decorations! Parcels: make box shapes of different sizes out of different coloured fondant. Stick two or three boxes on top of each other. Decorate them with edible glitter, sugar balls, metallic stars, then wrap them with ribbon or strips of fondant.

Fondant decorations are  fun to make, they are cheap and they are lovely treats too. Also, they are perfect gifts for your friends and family members! Have fun!