Ok, I have to make a coffin cake in a couple of months, and I'll be covering it in fondant since we want the outside to be black (black BC? YUCH LOL) I'm trying to decided on which one to get though? These are what I'm choosing from
Pettinice, black satin ice, or choco pan noire. Could I color MMF black? would it taste yuchy? The price of the fondant is not a problem as it is for my MIL's 50th birtday. So I want to go with the best tasting and looking reguardless of the price. You ladies are always so helpfull, I would appriciate your imput. Thanks!

Natasha

My personal preference would be Mill Lane fondant from www.creativecutters.com

They have a chocolate fondant which is really yummy and quite dark (won't take much colour to make it black)!

May I ask why a coffin for a 50th birthday party?

anyone have any opinions on the ones I mentioned? those were available on ebay, that's why I asked about those.

Satin Ice is great, but I've heard really good things about Choco-pan, it's just more expensive.

I haven't seen it, but I'm sure it's probably pretty dark. To that end, couldn't you just make a dark brown coffin? Since many of them are actually wood I don't think you'd lose any of the impact, and you'd make life a whole lot easier on yourself.

I bought some Choco-Pan at the OK Sugar Art Show. The had some samples laying out and the chocolate and carmel were delicious. The white tasted like white chocolate. I am not a big fan of white chocolate so it was just OK to me. I bought chocolate and white but haven't tasted it yet on a cake. I covered a small cake in the chocolate for a friend to try. She is wanting me to do her groom's cake. It covered and smoothed really well. It looked really nice. Sorry I don't have a pic.

I watched a demo of them putting it on a cake and they said not to use crisco when working with it. Only powdered sugar.

The paperwork I have says to roll it thin. Use a thin flat object to loosen the fondant from the surface (a large spatula or metal yard stick works well). Slide a corrugated cake board under the choco-pan and lift.

It doesn't dry out as quickly as regular fondant so you shouldn't have as much trouble with cracking. I am finding this to be a problem in dry Texas. Are we ever going to get rain?

It rolls thin to cover up to 60% more per pound than other national brands. It has a shelf life of 6 months and can be frozen or refrigerated.

When using a microwave oven to bring to room temperature, use the lowest setting possible. Overheating may cause Choco-Pan to breakdown and become unworkable.

It also says it is excellent for molding and sculpturing but again I haven't tried it.

It accepts coloring and flavoring.

I will be doing my SILs wedding cake and I plan on using the Wedding White Choco-Pan. I have plenty of time to practice since that is not for another year and a half.

Terri

LOL...just thinking...if I would have made a coffin cake for MY inlaws, I could have avoided YEARS of torture and abuse from them! They would have disowned me right on the spot!...

I tasted the dark choc. choco pan at the ICES convention and it was great kinda tasted like a tootsie roll.
Good luck with your cake.
justcakn

One more thing ... if you want to see the finished colour of the Mill Lane chocolate fondant, check out the Purse, Turkey Cupcake, and Turntable cakes in my gallery ... they all have the choco paste as the main covering. My Darth Vaders were both done with the choco paste, then air-brushed to black.

I use chocolate Pettinice. It is very dark and tastes just like a Tootsie Roll. I find it very easy to use too.

You could also use the choco-pan stuff and then paint the wood grains with black and a darker shade of chocolate/brown. That will really give it some realistic effects...maybe draw in a knot or two when drawing the wood grains.

Have fun!!

That sounds really awsome! How would I do the wood grain effect?

once you've covered your cake with fondant and are happy with the shape then you paint your piece.

Take whatever icing coloring you have, mix in a little clear alcohol (vodka, everclear, etc) or extract and then go to town with a paint brush!! Look at any piece of furniture you have that has wood grains and try to mimic the lines with an EXTREMELY thin paint brush. Some wood grains are pretty complex, so if you look for the basic flowing lines that curve towards and away from each other, you'll be fine. Start with a color that matches closest to your brown and then work towards darker colors - that way, if you mess up, it won't be apparent right away and can be corrected with a darker layer of color on top.

You could also practice wood grains on a sheet of paper first with regular watercolor paint and/or marker until you know that you have the right effect that you're going for.

I hope I didn't confuse you more.

I am definately going to give it a try! I bet it would look great. Thanks alot!

...I just thought of another way also....you could use an exacto knife (I love using this on my fondant...I have alot of control over how I cut my pieces) to lightly draw in the lines and then just paint the grooves a slightly darker color....

It sounds like the chocopan is really good stuff. Where do you order it from???

I recently purchased some Satin Ice because I heard it was really easy to work with. You will have to post a pic of your cake...it sounds really cute.