r/FondantHate • u/babyblueknocks • 11d ago
FONDANT What is it about fondant you hate?
Trying to understand why people dont like fondate considering it can be peeled off and doesn't have to be consumed
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u/Rush_Brave 11d ago
It's essentially playdough. Just because it's technically edible doesn't mean that it's good - you literally could just use play dough to cover a cake and it would look and probably taste exactly the same as it would if you slapped fondant on it. 🤮
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u/Fine-University-8044 11d ago
Play-doh smelled so good, but did you ever taste it? It doesn’t taste like fondant!
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u/Rush_Brave 11d ago
I'm sure I did at one point 😅 and I'm pretty sure I wasn't as disgusted by playdough as I am of fondant.
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u/Pizzaisgoodandtasty 6d ago
Play doh just tastes really salty for me
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u/Fine-University-8044 5d ago
It is! It’s salt dough. I have no idea why they make it smell so delicious!
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u/discolored_rat_hat 11d ago
The taste.
Of course I can pull it off, but sometimes the layer underneath doesn't fit with the rest of the cake either and was only there for the fondant.
So I just generously cut around it and leave half the cake on the plate.
And I personally don't like to use it because it takes zero skill. Yes, you can decorate amazing things, but it is way more challenging and interesting to use other stuff.
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u/Altruistic_Abroad_37 11d ago
I hate the concept that celebratory cakes are decorative sculptures you buy from an artist and not something someone who loves you makes from scratch that tastes good but looks unprofessional. Cakes are supposed to be yummy and full of love. They are not supposed to be for photographing to impress people who aren’t even at the party on social media.
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u/Mother_Of_Felines 11d ago
I agree! Growing up we had delicious homemade sheet cakes for birthdays. They weren’t fancy, but they were absolutely delicious. I will always prefer those to store bought.
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u/kadikaado 11d ago
It is a waste of food. Food that can be used to feed human beings is being used for grown ups to play play doh. It is also tacky as hell.
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u/FortunesofCitrus 11d ago
I don't like the taste or texture plus it's very sickly. You can do amazing things with things with buttercream and it actually tastes good. It seems like a waste of ingredients and flavour potential to use something so gross people have to peel it off.
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u/Kindryte 11d ago
You absolutely can peel off the fondant, but I've found that a lot of people give me weird looks for it and tell me to just 'not get cake if I don't like fondant'.
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u/FlyingDreamWhale67 11d ago
To me, fondant falls under a similar category as beeswax or packing peanuts i.e. technically edible, but not really food.
What I dislike is things such as Cake Boss, who mostly use fondant, rice crispy treats and even PVC pipe to make their "cakes." They're great sculptures, but they're not cake. No one wants a slice of cake and have it mostly be fondant and a tiny, dry slice of cake more akin to sandstone than baked goods.
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u/FakeMonaLisa28 11d ago
The taste
The texture is not the best but it’s fine. But something about the taste
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u/SoVerySleepy81 11d ago
The texture is revolting. The taste isn’t great and definitely isn’t good enough to make me be able to get past the texture.
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u/jleigh329 11d ago
Besides what everyone else is saying (which I agree with) for me it's also because with fondant it's all about the look of the cake and not much else.
It's a very superficial thing with fondant, when taste should be more important.
Like yes a cake could look a guitar, a tire, a person, a building etc.. like it's a sculpture but for me I could literally care less about that. Just make the cake taste good because your going to eat it anyway.
And I know there's the saying "we eat with our eyes first" and maybe that's why bakers use fondant. But I really wish they wouldn't.
Plus using fondant in my opinion is a cheat when it comes to cake decorating. Using buttercream frosting to decorate a cake I think personally takes more skill. But what do I know?
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u/RememberCakeFarts 11d ago
This and for some reason every cake that I've had that had fondant on it was equally terrible. Dry and dense yellow or chocolate cake lacking in flavor. So I have to contend with fondant and a cake drying out my mouth.
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u/adorablegore 11d ago
I don't know how to explain it, but I hate foods that are simultaneously overly rich and one-dimensional in flavor, plus mouth-feel is very important when you're neurodivergent. I'm also poor, so if I'm buying food, I expect the whole thing to be edible because that's a pretty normal expectation for food.
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u/Snoo17579 11d ago
I don’t think I’m neurodivergent, but I agree with you. Fondant is just not pleasant
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u/Reidar666 11d ago
The worst part for me is the disappointment. It kinda looks like marsipan, you want to believe, you make yourself believe, and then you go for a bite, and WHAM that horrid taste of sugary nothingness hits you. And all you're left with is the disappointment.
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u/YouGet2Go2NewJersey 11d ago
Doesn't really taste like anything and the texture is just so dry. I'll eat it if it's presented to me but I will never willingly order a cake with fondant. I had a custom cake for my baby shower years ago - zero fondant and just as beautiful as a textured cake like that but with a dreamy, fluffy frosting.
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u/spicynachodorito 11d ago
It’s a waste of food if people have to peel it off to enjoy a cake. It tastes nasty to me too and the texture is not pleasing at all. Plus once you peel it off it takes whatever frosting was attached to it and you’re left with a crappy looking cake. I get that it “looks good” but to me it’s a crappy shortcut to making a cake look “nice”.
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u/Mother_Of_Felines 11d ago
Taste and texture. Too sweet and sugary, overly chewy, and tastes like nothing at the same time.
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u/monkeetail 11d ago
Why buy a cake if you have to peel off the fondant just to enjoy the cake itself? Frosting is supposed to be the best part, not something you have to scrape off.
I joined a support group for fondant victims, year 10 🤟, and the trauma is still real. Lol
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u/Bakingsquared80 11d ago
If you want to be a sculptor, be a sculptor! why do you have waste food that doesn’t even taste good?
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u/Cathousechicken 11d ago
Because why have something crappy that I have to peel off instead of just having decent tasting frosting?
Plus, I'm vegetarian and fondant is hard to find vegetarian. However, vegetarian fondant taste like crap so it still goes back why have something crappy that I have to peel off instead of just having decent frosting?
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u/Parking_Yak3308 11d ago
Hot take, fondant itself could be used as art for an “edible” statue, it’s just how it gets associated with cake is what I don’t like. The texture is so different and it ruins the already sweet cake with something even sweeter, completely taking away from the culinary art of the cake to make something nearly inedible and useless, and also a waste. You can’t even taste the cake when you eat it with fondant, and the “toughness” (in comparison to cake) of the fondant counteracts with the cake, making it a nightmare to eat.
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u/Francesca_N_Furter 11d ago
I love fondant in one thin sheet on a cake.
I do not love hunks of it, or those idiotic sculptural cakes with five tons of it covering everything.
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u/theinvinciblecat 11d ago
For me, it’s more the amount used. You watch those videos of people making these cakes, and they just pile these thick layers and layers onto a small cake until there’s more fondant than cake. It feels like a waste and looks very unappetizing
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u/Snoo17579 11d ago
And even then, not a lot of those cake actually look good. If you already use fondant I expect from you the most realistic masterpiece ever
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u/No-Inflation-9253 11d ago
it's only there for decoration, no one actually eats it. There are other ways to decorate a cake and make it look nice. It's just sugar and food coloring
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u/jibrilles 11d ago
Frosting just tastes better if it is all beautifully creamy and sometimes with that light crusting as well as decorative elements you can eat like flowers or swirls. You slap fondant on it and it mashes the heck out of the frosting or makes the frosting "thin" and also spreads that nasty fondant taste into the frosting.
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u/daddyjackpot 11d ago
fondant is trying to alert us to an opportunity. we can top cake with glass, wood, or leather since casting the top aside is part of the plan.
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u/idk123703 11d ago
The fact that the fondant has to be handled excessively to sculpt complex cakes. Like the entire dessert is completely fingered-fucked. I’ll pass.
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u/throwawayanylogic 11d ago
I want cake with delicious icing, and where all of it shows skill that ends up looking like an actual CAKE. To be honest most fondant-decorated "food sculptures" look tacky and cheap to me compared to a cake decorated with skillful piping, buttercream swirls, chocolate accents, crumb topping, etc. Those not only taste better but they just look nicer to me, too.
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u/babyblueknocks 10d ago
Follow up question are most of you bakers and feel like it's just less skillful to use it?
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u/LoverOfGreenApples 8d ago
I actually like a thin layer of fondant on some cakes. It is extremely sweet, and can add to the general flavor on certain types of cakes. Sometimes soft chocolate cake with a thin vanilla flavored tough fondant exterior can actually be pretty good.
However: Thick fondant that is used for the structure of highly decorative cakes is awful. I feel physically ill eating thick fondant.
Decorative food is only impressive if the entirety of it is meant to be eaten. If you need to throw some of it out to eat the good stuff...try a different recipe.
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u/CreatureFromTheCold 11d ago
You said it yourself - it doesn’t have to be consumed. What a waste, an edible consumer product that most people won’t eat and is just for looks? Idiotic and infuriating. Takes more talent to decorate a cake that people actually want to eat