Fondant vs. How We Do It!

Fondant photo cookies versus Wicked Good photo cookies.

I always thought that I’d be a voracious blogger and yet, here I am, disappointed in myself that I rarely blog in spite of the fact that I love words (not nearly as much as my grandchildren – thought I’d quickly slip in my grandchildren – I have 5, and they are all beautiful, and all brilliant, and all bright, and all perfectly healthy – lucky me). But, getting back to words and blogs, words are cool and they can be sometimes clever when properly pieced together, and even though I rarely achieve either (cool and clever, that is), I like ‘em; like to read them, write them, and even talk using them. I might also add that I often digress while using them, but you already know that.

I really and truly am disappointed in myself for not visiting this Wicked Good world of a blog to write more often. There is so much to say (about grandchildren and cookies) and blogs can be an effective venue to editorialize away, ad nauseam. They’re a decent venue to brag and boast of your grandchildren’s latest unbelievable and incredible feat, or to merely state how easily your smile broadens whenever any of your 5 grandchildren are nearby. Here I go again with my incessant need to use a blog to brag as my real life friends and acquaintances tend to tune me out – go figure.

This particular blog will be my virginal entry of 2008 and I thought I’d use a few words to talk about the difference between a “fondant photo cookie” and a Wicked Good photo cookie. There is a difference and some might opine that the difference is monumental. I will admit that subjectivity may already indeed overwhelm me as I am a devout advocate of the patented technology that Wicked Good employs that allows it to precisely print any photo or image directly onto its infinite array of sugar cookie shapes and sizes. A fondant, in addition to being a “foreign film” element on a cookie (I’ll let my new pal Wikipedia provide a more detailed fondant definition in the words below), is typically limited to a preset series of “size and shape cut outs”.

As I referenced in the paragraph above, one of our newer reference bastions – Wikipedia - uses the following words to define a fondant: A “Fondant is a cream confection used as a filling or coating for cakes, pastries, and candies or sweets” (cookies count as sweets, I’m surmising). “In its simplest form, it is sugar and water cooked to a point, specifically the soft-ball stage, cooled slightly, and stirred or beaten until it is an opaque mass of creamy consistency” (who among us are not drooling at this very moment over thoughts of any form of an opaque mass?) Wikipedia goes on to say that a “the finished product solidifies and may be stored until needed, at which point it is reheated” (don’t we all just love solidified and reheated stuff). Wikipedia also opines “a fondant is formed by supersaturating sucrose in water. Less sugar will dissolve in water with a cooler temperature. After the sucrose is dissolved, the solution is left to cool and the sugar will remain dissolved in the supersaturated solution until nucleation occurs” (gee, thoughts of a supersaturated solution turned into a nucleated sheet on my cookie certainly make me drool). Wiki, like me, apparently loves words.

All these words to define this foreign sheet of a sugar based compound that can slide through the food coloring version of an ink jet printer and “print” a photo directly onto this third party fondant sheet, so that this third party fondant sheet can ultimately be indirectly placed on a cookie (and often held in place on a cookie with piped frosting). Interesting, dontcha think? One fondant photo cookie supplier states “the images are printed on frosting sheets, not rice paper. (good to know). Frosting sheets provide the highest quality image and have no flavor or taste” (I say “what add-on sheet have you ever tried that has NO aftertaste or flaky feel on the palate. I also say – phew - imagine adding rice paper instead of a glazed frosting sheet; my taste buds surrender at the thought). Another photo cookie fondant supplier advises ”you can expect some deterioration in the cookie decoration if moisture touches the cookie surface. . .humidity can cause the edible images to stick to the wrapping for Photo Cookies”. Thanks for the warning, I say, as what good is a photo cookie whose photo cookie element has broken free from its cookie base. Enough, you beg, ENOUGH! Almost, I whisper, as I’d like to add one more comment regarding economics and variety.

The economics, as well as variety, relate to the pre-cut fondant sheets that are used within the industry. These pre-cut sheets are typically supplied in pre defined shapes and pre-cut sizes in order to address economy of scale issues. Die cut fondants eliminate ragged edges when extracting the image portion of a fondant and lends understanding to the rationale behind the typically limited photo cookie offerings; a few circles and squares and rectangles, and a heart shaped cookie or two. The economics also relate to the added operational process as fondant cookie suppliers need to print on a fondant, remove the printed portion from the overall fondant sheet, and then affix, and then seal the photo portion of the fondant sheet onto a cookie. I eloquently state – phew. All this takes time as well as great hand to eye coordination, I’m thinking. I’m also thinking that time is money and time equates to cost and time and time again, I digress.

By contrast, we at Wicked Good utilize a patented technology that allows us to print directly onto our “NO preservative and NO artificial flavors added” photo cookies. We print directly onto a cookie what mere mortals can print on paper, or what fondant photo cookie suppliers can print directly onto a theoretically tasteless and invisible fondant. Further, in as much as we are not limited to pre cut, die cuts, virtually any shape and size is possible. I won’t bore you with an endless litany of propaganda eulogizing the great taste of our cookies; but they are delicious, they do incorporate lots of butter and sugar and secretly succulent ingredients, and they do look as great as they taste. Remarkable is an often used word when describing our wickedly precise and directly applied photos to our cookie concoctions.

By the way, our patented and modified Hewlett Packard printer/plotter is also capable of using fondants to place images on cookies. We deliciously decline to incorporate. Wonder why!

Finally, have I mentioned the fact that I have 5 pretty perfect grandchildren?