Homemade Sprinkles!

A few months ago my sister got it in her head to make some sprinkles. I'm pretty sure my response was something like: 

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO YOURSELF. BUY THE DARN SPRINKLES. 

It has always been in my opinion that since sprinkles come in most every size and color there is very little reason to spend five hours cutting our tiny dots of fondant unless a cat shaped, rhaspberry flavored, purple sprinkle is absolutely integral to the success of a baked good.

The god of sprinkles heard my glib comments. Vengeance is sweet. (Pun fully intended). 

 On the left you can see many of the quin sprinkles I own. They are storebought. Fun, pretty, but a little lacking in diversity. On the right are the sprinkles I made, flowers, stars, hearts, and a rainbow of colors.

In those store bought sprinkles you might notice a lack of white confetti sprinkles that I need for a cake.  That one very specific sprinkle, in that one specific color. I could buy the sprinkle......for $23 plus shipping from England. Uhhhhhh. NOPE. I can make that sprinkle for $3 in one afternoon. DEAL.

Turns out sprinkle making was WAY more fun than I anticipated. Throw on a movie, color up some fondant and you're in business! In just an hour you can have a whole rainbow of fun colored sprinkles! 

 My pro-tips are: buy plungers and use a pasta maker.

The plungers are much faster. If you look up fondant tools you will find a plethora of fondant tools, including tiny plungers that make perfect little sprinkles. They sell some shapes at local craft stores as well. They make ALL the difference. Some people use large piping tips as cutters. I found that tedious.

The pasta machine lets me roll out small amounts of fondant and ensures that all my sprinkles will be uniform thickness. Since I wanted my sprinkles to look at professional as possible, uniformity was key.

I don't think you can really tell those are homemade, do you? Not too shabby!

While all the colorful sprinkles took me about an hour, the white quins......I needed to cover 150 square inches of cake.....so that was a few hours more. You'll see that post in a few weeks!

Homemade Sprinkles
yield 1.5 pounds of rolled fondant

8 oz mini marshmallows
1 lb bag powdered sugar
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoons clear flavoring (if desired)
food coloring (if desired)

Spray your mixing bowl and a glass bowl (that can be used to melt marshmallows in the microwave) with cooking spray.Place the marshmallows, water and flavoring of your choice (Mine are raspberry!) in the greased glass bowl on high at 30 second intervals. Stir every 30 seconds until marshmallows are completely melted, about 2 minutes.

Sift one half of the powdered sugar in the greased mixing bowl. Pour in the melted marshmallows. Mix using the dough hook until all the melted marshmallows are incorporated in the powdered sugar. Mixture will be thick but still a runny.

Sift the remaining half bag of powdered sugar into the melted marshmallows. Mix on low until it comes together. Fondant will be very thick and have a dough like consistency

Put fondant in a plastic baggie and make sure no air gets to it. Rest fondant for at least an hour before use.

To make colored fondant, add food coloring and kneed the dough again to incorporate. Roll in powdered sugar occasionally to keep dough from sticking.

Roll fondant out using either a pasta roller (up to setting 4) or rolling pin. The dough should be 1-2 mm thick.

Cut out using plungers.

Place the sprinkles on a sheet of wax paper.

Let them dry for 24 hours or until they have completely hardened.