Sugar Art and Cake Decorating

Welcome to my Blog

Beautiful trio of sugar roses
 with Stephanotis
 

Have you ever wondered what Sugar Art is? How to make a masterpiece out of any cake? Do you want to share stories, pictures, ideas and recipes that work for you? Please join me in the great love of sugar art and cake decorating.

 

What is Sugar Art?

Sugar art is everything from decorating with chocolate, blown sugar art, sugar flowers to making characters on a birthday cake. It makes you happy to look at. It can be as complex and technical as blown sugar or as simplistic as icing a cake and adding a flower. It can be edible and last only a brief time or as a decorative piece, it can last a long time.

Sugar art is as hard to work with and beautiful as you want it to be.    

Beautiful green sugar roses

 

 

Do I have to be an artist to do sugar art?

No. Just have some imagination and love trying new things.

My name is Christina and I am a trained Sugar Artist.  My journey with sugar art started 6 years ago. I couldn’t get enough of cake art, sugar flowers and creating beautiful art pieces out of sugar. After taking the all the courses that I could find around the Ottawa area I ventured out and found a wonderful school in Atlanta, Georgia. Here I studied under a famous cake decorator, sugar artist and chef. One of the great memories of my sugar training was when chef said “don’t be afraid of it, it’s only sugar!” and he said this a lot. But it does make a lot of sense!

Please visit my website at www.christinascakecreations.ca

Have you wondered what the difference is between fondant and gum paste?

It’s all forms of sugar. Here are some definitions to help you out:

First let’s talk Fondant.

Rolled fondant is sugar dough. It is confectioners’ sugar (also called icing sugar here in Canada) a gelatin and glycerin which gives it a doughy consistency. There are different recipes such as adding corn syrup or vegetable oil; vegetable oil is generally found in the commercial brands. You would use rolled fondant for covering cakes, tops of cupcakes and cookies.

If I'm using a commercial brand (which I do a lot, I admit) I sometimes add some flavour since most people do end up eating the fondant on the cake and I find most commercial fondant tasteless.

It isn't hard to make your own fondant.

Poured fondant is simply icing sugar and water with a little chemistry to cook it where it should be (soft ball stage)

However there are other poured fondant recipes out there that are great such as a Marshmallow Fondant.

Do you have a great Marshmallow Fondant recipe to share?

 

Let's talk gum paste

Gum paste is a sugar dough (icing sugar, water) with  a gum Arabic or gum Tragacanth added. You can roll it thin, mold characters and make sculptures. Basically it's a cake decorators clay. Gum paste is similar to fondant when working with it, but hardens. Working fast and smart is the way to go.
I love working with gum paste, you can add so many fine details, textures, glue pieces together (with edible glue; which is a recipe I'll share), you can paint them and make beautiful pieces.
There are different types of gum paste:

1. You can make your own. I will share a great home made gum paste recipe.
2. You can buy the powdered gum paste and add water to the consistency you want
3. You can buy ready made gum paste. This is what I generally do, however making your own is simple.

Bright cheerful Gerber Daisies made from gum paste

      
I hope this helps. Do you have a fondant or gum paste favourite brand?

Stay tuned for more....

Christina