Sugar Flowers

I've always wanted to get better at cake decorating but was majorly put off by the amount of tools and kits I needed to get. I figured it wasn't worth it - I'd probably make each item only once and never again - totally not worth the investment.

However, one of the dental assistants at my practice has graciously lent me her cake decorating kit! Dashed off to the library and came home armed with books.



Then it was pretty much time to get down to work.



Its extremely time consuming and mess producing. First, you have to make the sugar paste - unless you choose to take a shortcut. Seeing I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere and can't buy ready made sugar paste even if I wanted to, I made it from scratch. It requires sifting the icing sugar 3 times.

For my first batch I pretty much said stuff that, I'm going to just not sift it at all.

Bad idea. If the recipe says sift your sugar 3 times - sift it 3 times!!

Once you have your sugarpaste mix, it's time to roll a tiny bit out with a small rolling pin. How thin? Until you can see the pattern of the board you're working on.

Then cut out the petal with the appropriate cutter and start snipping in additional cuts for frills. Once done, it's time to frill the edges with a cocktail stick and then attach it onto a wire.

That's one petal done. After that one has to leave it to dry overnight and start the process all over again for the subsequent petals. I told you it was time consuming.



Here are all my flowers, hanging to dry. Still white.



Edible chalk for coloring flowers. Also had small pots of shimmer dust.






The finish products. Once all the petals are on, I dusted them with shimmer dust and painted the leaves green with green shimmer dust mixed with some gin. Yes - gin. Bombay Sapphire to be precise. Can also swap for any clear high alcohol content liquid e.g. vodka.

These flowers are designated to adorn future projects, which I have yet to get onto. I would love to learn how to make more complex flowers e.g. orchids, roses in full bloom, sweet peas etc but there's so many other things I want to learn. Maybe some other day I will revisit the art of sugar flowers.

Thus ends my dabble into sugar paste modeling. Until next time.

Sugar Paste Recipe

250g pure icing sugar (sifted 3 times)
2 level teaspoons fine gelatine
1 round teaspoon liquid glucose
30ml water

Place water into a double boiler. Sprinkle gelatine onto the water in bowl. When gelatine has dissolved add glucose and stir until dissolves. Remove bowl from heat and add icing sugar a spoonful at a time into the mixture until it comes together.

Store in fridge, in a plastic bag placed in an airtight container.