Learning How to Make Sugar Flowers.... Part 1... The Beginning.
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Today I'd like to talk about sugar flowers and using them to decorate your cakes. Like real flowers there are many different styles, sizes, colours and shapes to sugar flowers. Your imagination is endless with what you'd like to create. This is a very long post so I thought I'd do it in a few blogs. PLEASE ADD and comment on what works for you...I'd love to share your tips and practices.
My website with sugar flowers pictures: www.christinascakecreations.ca
I like to create sugar flowers as close to real flowers as possible. Although nature is a much better artist then I am I do my best to create flowers as close as I can get. However fantasy flowers are beautiful too!.
Anyone can make a lovely decorated cake with flowers.
To start:
Think about what you're doing with them. Are you putting them on a cake? Are you making an arrangement?
These are important because you have to think about size, style of cake, size of vase (if you're making an arrangement) etc. For example if you're making a 6" cake you might only get 1 sugar peony on the top because they're usually a large sugar flower.
Other tips and things to think about:
-if you're putting sugar flowers on a cake, make them early. They last a long time, so they'll be good to go and you're not rushed the day you make they cake. Gum paste sugar flowers last definitely.
-if you're making lovely simple fondant flower cutouts don't forget that you'll need something to adhere them to a cake. This can be done with a royal icing, edible glue (and I can pass along a recipe if you need it) or egg white (follow food safe practices when using eggs)
-are you making sugar flowers with toothpicks, wire or nothing. Keep in mind that you don't want to insert a wire (even if it's covered with floral tape) into a cake--this is not a healthy food safe practice. You can make your sugar flowers on toothpicks and you can insert right into the cake. I have made sugar flowers with no wire or toothpicks and these are great for cake toppers. But if you're inserting in the side of a cake you need a toothpick or use a straw first (discussed next)
-Are you making a spray of flowers with a variety of flowers and sizes? This is usually done with wiring your flowers and leaves and putting them together.
-A great way to insert wired sugar flowers into a cake is to have a large straw inserted first. For example I just finished 3 cake toppers for the top of 3 wedding cakes. The cakes were covered in butter cream icing. I inserted large milkshake straws in the top of each cake. When I wired all of my flowers together I made sure to floral tape them together nice and smooth so they would fit into a milkshake straw nice and tight. I inserted the straw first, took it out and with a thinner straw pushed out the cake that got caught inside, I put the large milkshake straw back in the hole and then put the cake topper in. I carefully pushed the sugar flower cake topper down so it sat nicely on the top of the cake.
Here is a picture of the cake topper sitting the 6" cake:
Choosing your sugar flowers: There are so many choices! There are the standard customs of using different flowers for different things. For example Calla Lilies, Ranunculus and Rose sugar flowers are popular for wedding cakes. Daisies seem to be popular for birthday cakes. One thing you can do is visit a website that talks about the language of flowers, what flowers mean or even what the flower of the month is. A website that I've found is: http://thelanguageofflowers.com and I've even wrote information on this on a previous blog: http://ottawacakeart.blogspot.ca/2014/05/junes-flower-is-rose-language-of-flowers.html
But no matter what is common I think it's important to make the flowers that you want for your cake or arrangement. Again your imagination is endless! And I always like to mix it up with different flowers!
-Another decision to think about is: are you making your flowers out of fondant or gum paste?
The difference between fondant and gum paste:
First let’s talk Fondant.
Rolled fondant is a 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 generally 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 some commercial fondant is 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.
If you're making flowers out of fondant keep in mind that the cutout flower is best. This is simply rolling out some fondant and using a 5 Petal Flower Cutter cut out your flower and then just stick it to your cake. It's generally not in 3-D. Or if you do make fondant flowers keep in mind they don't last long (especially in summer heat or humidity) and will wilt.
Let's talk gum paste.
Gum paste is a sugar dough (icing sugar, water) with a gum Arabic or gum tragacanth added (I add Tylose). 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 if you need it), you can paint them and make beautiful pieces.There are different types of gum paste:
- You can make your own. I do have a nice home made gum paste recipe if you need it.
- You can buy the powdered gum paste and add water to the consistency you want. I personally don't care for this method.
- You can buy ready made gum paste. This is what I generally do, however making your own is simple.
Sugar flowers are generally made with gum paste so they can harden. Fondant sugar flowers can be made of course, but won't harden as quickly. Humidity and where you live also plays a factor of how quickly your fondant and gum paste will harden so keep this in mind.
I have made sugar flowers out of fondant and added Tylose (which is a gum that will allow the fondant to harden) however I found in humidity that a good quality commercial (or handmade) gum paste hardens quicker and lasts longer then adding the Tylose just to fondant.
To be continued...
Thanks for your continued support,
Happy Decorating!!
Christina Lapointe
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