I cannot roll fondant icing. Help please

[shoppingbagsundereyes]

I made ds' birthday cake today. Lightly dusted the table with icing sugar and attempted to roll a large square. Ended up with a large parallelogram which was totally stuck to the table. When I lifted it it tore in a couple of places. End result is fine, I've patched and covered the dodgy bits with Batmanny things but what did I do wrong? This happens every time I try using fondant.
Have got to make dd's bday cake next week so could do with some tips.

The amazing tip I picked up somewhere is to use cornflour to dust your surface rather than icing sugar. Don't worry, you can't taste it at all and it gives a lovely smooth surface. Yes to the clingfilm of lunatic's DH, but I find greaseproof paper is even better as you don't tend to get any wrinkles in it.

But deffo try the cornflour instead of icing sugar tip, it works so well, I assume because it isn't sticky. HTH :)

You need to knead it first to make it pliable, lots of icing sugar down, roll it then turn it. Keep moving it round when you roll it to stop it sticking.

Oh and roll, lift, turn over, roll a bit more, rather than trying to roll the whole lot in one go. Doesn't matter if you get cornflour on both sides.

All of the above.
Cornflower.
Loads of kneeding
Roll and flip over and roll and flip.....

Knead it first, then before you roll it out, smear the worksurface with Trex or white flora.

Thanks all, will get some cornflour this week

Lots of great advice here.

I have used trex in the past which works quite well. Just keep moving it as you roll and when it gets big you can roll it over your rolling pin and use that to flip it round.

I now use cornflour after a few disasters with icing sugar. You only need a small amount of cornflour and it doesn't dry up the icing like icing sugar does so no cracks.

I love you all! I used the corn flour and for the first time ever have managed a beautifully rolled square of icing that transfered to the cake without disaster. So delighted. The corn flour makes it so easy to work with. Thank you

I always use cling film for icing, pastry, biscuit dough etc. big piece to cover top and bottom with enough spare round the edges for expansion as it gets larger and flatter.