I'm having a super hard time with something and I'm hoping somebody can help.

I'm making a 3D firetruck cake for my son's 3rd birthday. So far, the Wilton black gel turned my fondant deep purple and not the light gray I was hoping to create for the grill of the truck, windows and other metal-looking accent pieces.

We're going with a paint-on silver luster dust instead.

Then...the batch of marshmallow fondant I made doesn't seem to be working out. I don't know what it is, but it's too stretchy...I roll and roll and it contracts right back into shape.

I used a portion of it to form the legs and rungs of the ladder for the truck and I couldn't get the fondant to shape into a square (I had been able to do this with a previous batch of fondant but that ladder broke). The legs and rungs shaped...but they just wouldn't shape at right angles...it was a bit too stretchy.

Then...the legs and rungs never quite dried out enough...lol. The legs would bend when I picked them up. It had no structure.

So a friend suggested I pour white chocolate but I don't have the molds and can't think of anything to pour the chocolate into to create the shape I'm looking for. So I'm thinking I'm going to make another fondant ladder out of the fondant that is too stretchy and not drying enough. Then...I'll dip the legs a nd rungs in melted white chocolate and hopefully that will give the ladder the support it needs when it dries.

I'm concerned about the hot chocolate melting the fondant though. I've NEVER worked with melted chocolate and I don't know what effect it will have on the fondant.

Any ideas?

You can just pipe chocolate from a bag and make the ladder. Whenit cools, it is hard and you can pick it up and put it on your fire truck.

I usually just pipe it in white chocolate, but you could also use dark chocolate or a colored chocolate. I draw the two lines for the sides of the ladder, then add the "steps."