I am making a graduation cake for good friend who cannot eat gelatin due to religious dietary restrictions. She is fine with buttercream, but a lot of the designs she really loves use fondant.

Does anyone know of a fondant recipe or something similar that could be used to create a fondant-type look that does not include gelatin?

TIA

Try the Easy Marshmallow Fondant recipe from this site. It's made with marshmallow cream which doesn't have gelatin in it.

I assumed that, too. Then my SIL threw such a fit over a cake I made for a family get together having fondant on it that I looked. Apparently it is fine for her girls to have nothing but pastries and white bread, but a little kosher gelatin was forbidden. No religious reason for them, though.

Satin Ice is Kosher Pareve http://www.satinfinefoods.com/about.shtml

check with the health food store for vegetarian or vegan gelatin substitutes. You could look for a recipe for rolled buttercream. they look like fondant but are buttercream

I'm going to assume, that the religious dietary restrictions are because of anything that contains pork. If that's the case the marshmallow creme won't work either. It either contains gelatin or lard or something. I can't remember, but I read the label once. Many marshmallows won't work. You'd have to read the label and make sure or you'd have to be sure its "kosher". If Satin Ice is Kosher, then great, I hadn't heard that, but I know everything Wilton is kosher and if you could get away with maybe doing a buttercreme cake with wilton fondant decorations, then that might be an option. And if you had had had to cover it in that, then you could do that too if you had no other option.

I do not know the exact reason you/she are omitting the gelatin, but I just wanted to let you know that marshmallows contain gelatin
Marshmallow Fluff doesnt contain gelatin but it does contain a form of egg whites, so depending on your dietary restrictions and your reasons, you should be aware of this.

For fondant recipes that call for gelatin I would substitute agar (it needs to be cooked first to dissolve the agar and get gelled before you can use it). Substitute powdered agar for gelatin 1:1 (1 Tbsp of agar flakes is equal to 1 tsp of agar powder). If you can only find flakes (that's what I usually use) you can also use a grinder to turn the agar flakes into powder so you don't need to convert amounts, if you prefer. You can find agar in health food stores (they usually keep it with the seaweed) or online.

Alternatively, you could try a recipe for fondant that doesn't call for gelatin. I found this one online a while back but haven't gotten around to trying it yet:

Vegan Fondant:

2 cups raw sugar
1 cup water
1/8th tsp cream of tartar

Using candy method bring ingredients to 238F. Finish as per fondant method.

You knead in any flavouring or colouring you want when the fondant is cooled and almost pure white. You can freeze this fondant for up to 3 months (let it thaw and re-knead it before rolling).

If you're new to candy making they recommend replacing 1/4th cup of the sugar with 1/4th cup corn syrup to help prevent crystallization (which wrecks the fondant). They also refer to this website for detailed instructions about how to make fondant (where there is another gelatin-free fondant recipe you might try):

http://www.candymaking.net/Fondants.html