Candy clay, or modeling chocolate, is a versatile edible clay that you can use on its own or to mix into fondant to give it extra stretch when you’re covering a cake with it.
This candy clay recipe is pretty easy to make, but you have to be careful to not overwork it, or the liquids can separate out.
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Candy Clay recipe.
1. For candy clay, use one 12 ounce package of Wilton candy melts to 1/3 cup MINUS 1 TBSP of corn syrup. (Wilton packages used to be 14 ounces, but they downsized them recently! Make sure to take out the Tablespoon of syrup or the candy clay will be too soft.) Shop for Wilton candy melts on Amazon (#ad)
2. By weight, use 1 pound candy melts to 5 or 5 ½ ounces by weight of corn syrup. You can adjust the corn syrup to make softer or stiffer clay.
3. Melt the candy melts by heating in the microwave for 20 seconds at a time and stirring until almost all of the lumps are melted.
4. When the candy melts are totally lump-free, add the corn syrup and stir until it starts to seize up. Make sure all the candy melts are incorporated but don’t overstir. Mixing it too much will make the clay separate when it cools. If that happens it isn’t a big deal, but the texture might be slightly off.
5. Wrap the candy clay in plastic wrap and let it sit overnight. Knead to soften up when you’re ready to use it. You can add this to fondant half and half, or use it as is.
6. If it’s really stiff when you go to use it, put it in the microwave for 5 seconds to soften up. Don’t put it in for much longer than that or it will melt and separate.
7. Wrap in plastic wrap and store at room temperature in a closed container and it will keep for months.
Tips for making and using candy clay.
- DO NOT OVERMIX it when you’re stirring the corn syrup in! The oils in the chocolate will separate out and give you a grainy texture when it cools off. Stir it until you see that the corn syrup is combined, but if it starts looking grainy try to finish quickly.
- If you want to add color to the clay using oil-based candy colors is best once it’s cooled off. Before that, though, you can add water-based colors by adding it to the corn syrup before you mix it into the candy clay. Shop for oil-based colors on Amazon (#ad)
- If the candy clay is stored for a long time it will dry out and get really crumbly. You can probably revive it by adding some glycerin, corn syrup, or crisco, but sometimes it’s not going to work. If it’s too dry just throw it out and start over.
- You can mix candy clay into fondant to get the best properties of both. It improves the flavor of fondant and makes it more stretchable, and the fondant makes candy clay easier to roll out and cover cakes with. I used to combine fondant and candy clay 50/50, but you can add more or less of each to get a mixture that you like to work with. There are some brands of commercial fondant that have candy clay in them, like Chocopan (#ad).
- Candy clay can get too hot and start to melt, so if you’re making flowers with them don’t use them on cakes that will be outdoors in the summer.
- You can also use candy clay to decorate cookies instead of royal icing. Click here for an article about how to do that.
- For 3D cakes, candy clay can be a good option to use because it’s easier to blend seams and create texture than it can be when you’re using fondant. Check out the honeybadger cake, it was covered with candy clay so that I could make the fur and add details easily.
Candy clay vs. modeling chocolate.
As a final note, I’ll say that people refer to candy clay and modeling chocolate as the same thing, but making it with candy melts means that it isn’t modeling chocolate.
Chocolate is chocolate, and for it to be real modeling chocolate you would need to make it with chocolate.
Either way, it tastes better than fondant, and it works well for modeling and making decorations.
