Hi James,
Here is my fondant recipe along with some notes:
"6.25 to 1 ratio of sugar to water, with half a table spoon of vinegar per kilogram of sugar.
This ratio worked best for me - no need to keep heating for long periods of time to lower the water content, but enough time that things didn't happen too fast for me.
I put it on a high heat, and kept stirring. It will suddenly thicken at some point. A minute or so later, I would start checking the temp, and the starting point was usually around 245 or so. As soon as it hit 265 degrees F or so, I'd turn the heat off. Some batches went to 270, but no problems were caused. I found this process quite fast and simple.
I didn't let it cool for long, just a minute or two (I was making small batches though due to cooking pot size constraints!). It was still boiling when I poured it into the moulds. Any large bubbles that rose to the surface I just patted down with a spoon.
I didn't whisk it, I found that dropping samples into water too hit and miss and laborious, and I can run out a batch in half an hour or less."
I used this a couple of years ago and got good results. However I doubt I will ever go so such trouble again - it's hot, time consuming, messy and not much fun at all. I found I was able to get more sugar into a hive using the newspaper method. I had one hive in terrible strife, so as well as sugar on top of newspaper, I pulled out a couple of frames on the side and filled the space with a huge amount of sugar. They came through Winter in fantastic condition. Sometimes the simplest things really do work the best, and plain old white sugar with some newspaper is is simple as it gets.
Best regards,
John.