Cake with Gumpaste Roses

Hello, all! I've actually had this cake in my archives for a little while, and I thought I had already posted it! This was a little 6-inch cake that I had decorated with gumpaste roses and leaves. It looks like a mini-wedding cake, and since it's still wedding season, why not post it now? 

I iced and covered the little cake in white fondant, then made a little mound of fondant on top (I had some leftover yellow, so you'll see it in the side view) I started by making a large rose (for a refresher go here). I didn't have any wire or floral tape, so I stuck with toothpicks. I kept going with a few more, and stuck the roses into the mound then continued with progressively smaller roses cascading. On this particular cake, I made 4 large roses, 4 medium roses and 2 buds. I finished with leaves that I had cut out of green-tinted gumpaste. I folded them in half and let them dry on folded notecards (so they can hold their shape). I just chose little gaps to fill with leaves, then finished with a pearl border. Here are some more views...

One criticism that I would give the cake is that I am not really a fan of the leaves. Unfortunately, I only had one cutter, so they only came out to that one size. However, I went to my craft store and found this!

Courtesy Wilton.com

All those cutters! Can't wait to see what I can do with those...

Gumpaste Roses

It's been so long since my last post! OK, OK, OK I will try my best to at least make new posts twice a week. We'll see how that goes...

So I decided to get back into gumpaste since I randomly found a brand new package in my cupboard.

I haven't tried to make my own yet, since I find the Wilton brand gumpaste to work pretty well for me. Eh, I'll try mixing my own someday just to compare. Anyhoo, I took the Wilton courses ages ago, so I wanted to get back into doing roses, at least. I already have the rose cutters (3 sizes), the ball and vein tool, the thick foam, and thin foam from the Wilton Course 3 kit, which is super convenient. However, all of these components are sold at your local craft store separately.

I started with breaking off and kneading my gumpaste with a light dusting of cornstarch and confectioner's sugar mixed together.Then I cut out a flower with the smallest cutter and made it into a cone shape. *At this point, you can slip the cone onto some wire wrapped in florist tape if you want to go a bouquet route. Another easy way to handle the roses is by slipping the cone onto a toothpick and working from there. This reduces handling the gumpaste and making it stickier. *

Next, I rolled out my gumpaste to 1/16 an inch then cut out a flower with the medium cutter. (Make sure to wrap up your unused gumpaste!) I used a spatula to cut notches between each petal, and I placed it on the thin foam pad. I then ruffled the edges of the petals by running the ball tool over the edges to thin them out (dip the ball into the powder mixture if you need to!)

I flipped the flower over and pressed the ball into the middle of the piece to create a cup. Then I applied a bit of piping gel (or water or flavor) into the cup and placed the cone in. 

Now for the next set of directions, I'll refer to the petals as a little man with a head, two legs, and two arms. So I applied some piping gel to the head and wrapped it around the cone. Then the same went for an arm, the opposite leg, the other arm, then that opposite leg. At this point you have a rosebud!

 If you want to continue to a medium rose, cut out another medium-sized flower, cup up two arms, then flip over and cup up the head and legs. Wrap the arms around, then the legs and head...

If you want to continue on to a large rose, use the large cutter and cup all petals, flip over and add to the rest.

Alright, this one looks a bit shabby, but it's my first rose in a couple of years, so I kept practicing then got a little playful with some pink luster dust...

Not too bad! I hope I inspired some of you to try gumpaste! It's not as scary as it seems, and all it takes is a bit of practice! Now to see how this can come together on a cake...