Satin Ice... or SATAN Ice???

I'm sorry for the severe title, but that's how I feel right now. AAAAAARGH! I normally use MMF, but I use Fondarific for my black cakes. I have a black cake to do, and since Satin Ice was on sale, so I decided to give it a try, ya know since almost EVERY professional raves about it...boy did I make a mistake. The first 12" tier tore all over the place, along with the 8". Luckily I was able to patch them reasonably well. If such an intricate and covering design wasn't going on these tiers I would've had to do them all over again. Then... the 6". Usually the 6" is the easiest. In my LIFE, I have never had to redo fondant on a 6" more than once. After 2 fails with this fondant tearing all over the place, I have had it!!! I don't know WHAT to do, I'm gonna have a pathetic profit left if I have to go buy some fondarific just for this last tier, since I already had to buy sugarveil for the piping work. My life is ending. Just put me out of my misery. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!! That is all.

I'm in Arizona, so like the opposite of high humidity. I just mixed what little fondarific I had left with the Satin ice and it tore, but not near as bad. Thank goodness that nightmare is over!

So I left them a message and they called me back and tried to work it out. They tested my batch and said it worked fine for them. They offered to pay for me to ship it to them so they could try my actual bucket, but I didn't feel it was worth the effort. She did give me a few tips, and I think I'll try using it again at a less crucial moment to see if the steps work.

I did use the dough hook to knead it for 5-10 minutes, so I asked her if maybe I should knead it for even longer, and she said the dough hook thing is good but longer than 10 minutes is really not gonna help anything.

She said to add NO shortening (as in don't mix any shortening into it), apparently it breaks down the gum that keeps it elastic. I did add shortening when I was trying to troubleshoot it on my 3rd cake, so I believe that must have definitely aggravated it.

Also, she said not to walk away from it, but immediately put it on the cake after it's rolled out. This is an interesting point for me, because I use "the mat" and since my rolled out fondant remains sandwiched between two sheets that keep the air from contacting it, I can leave my rolled out MMF and go spray my cake, and do a couple others things if needed then come back and cover the cake with it, but apparently that's a no-no with satin ice, as she said the gum starts to harden or something even within a minute or so, so no walking away. I'm convinced this is probably the biggest factor of why this fondant failed me.

So the verdict: I'm gonna give Satin Ice another chance. Thanks for letting me vent! Apparently I have to watch myself a little more carefully in the future though, as the Satin Ice lady mentioned she had heard of a "satan ice" post, and she asked me if I was the one who posted it. LOL I told the truth but it made the rest of the conversation kinda awkward

Ok I just wanted to revisit this post for a sec to say I've made my peace with Satin Ice. In Phoenix, my kitchen will only hold at 78-80 degrees on these record brutal 114-115 days and I had great success with light pink satin ice, when my MMF would NOT by any means co-operate. I'd like to apologize for any annoyance this forum post has caused Satin Ice or fans of it. It was a very frustrating day... what can I say?