Wired Gum Paste Rose Leaves and Bouquet

The point of having gum paste roses (or any flower, for that matter) on wires is so that you can make an arrangement by taping them together with floral tape. Otherwise, you can just make them on toothpicks or pieces of uncooked, thick spaghetti. This means if you want to have any leaves in your bouquet, then they also need to be on wires. I show you how to do it in a tutorial I posted on CakesDecor.com, complete with pictures and instructions.

I posted several tutorials on that website because they were having a contest, you see. And these are all things I've been wanting to post here on my blog, but my efforts get more traffic and exposure over there. Plus, I think it's a pretty cool place for cake decorators to hang out, and there are many more tutorials posted that cover a wide range of cake decorating skills and techniques.

Once your leaves and flowers are all made, you can have a lot of fun and get really creative with petal and luster dusts to add some color and shimmer to really make your flowers look impressive. Then, you just attach them together with floral tape. I can be am very clumsy, and these petals and leaves are fragile, so I like to work over a kitchen towel. I still break stuff, which is why it's always a good idea to make extras, but at least if anything slips from my fingers it will land on a somewhat soft surface instead of shattering as soon as it hits the table.

Below is the full playlist showing how to make wired roses and leaves, as well as how to paint them with luster dust and tape them together in an arrangement. I have more cake decorating videos posted on my YouTube channel, including a few on how to pipe flowers using petal tips and a flower nail.

Wired Gum Paste Carnations

Thanks to the wonderful world of the Internet, there's a wealth of resources at out fingertips. From Google searches to online communities, you can find instructions and information on nearly anything you may want to know about or learn how to do.

I recently posted an online tutorial on how to make wired gum paste carnations on cakesdecor.com. They're actually having a tutorials contest, so if you'd like to share a technique, feel free to participate. You can see my How to Make Carnations on Wires tutorial there, and I also posted three videos on YouTube.

The first shows you how to make the flower bases, which need to dry completely before proceeding. The second video shows you how to make the petals and build the carnation, and then the third video is about how to add a calyx to finish it off.






 Oh, and here's the Photobucket slideshow of all the pictures.

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Those New Wilton Punches

Earlier this year, Wilton released a new product line called Punch.Cut.Decorate! that consists of punch cutters like the die cutters used in scrapbooking. The companion product, Sugar Sheets, are very thin, edible "paper" you cut with the punches, available in a variety of colors and patterns.

There are two basic punches: an oval and wavy line. But you can then get different inserts that cut other shapes. You may have seen the swanky new product display in the Wilton aisle of your favorite craft store. I mention it because I think these type of decorating tools might appeal to crafters who have previously been intimidated by cake decorating, as this is really more like scrapbooking and paper crafts. You're just using edible sugar paper and food-safe punches.

The potential for creativity here is huge, and I can see how these products will open up the world of cake decorating for a whole new market. At least, I suppose that's what Wilton hopes will happen. Instructors got a sneak preview of the product line at our annual meetings, and we got to take a set of the basic punches home with us along with a sample pack of Sugar Sheets, which was awesome!

We were supposed to showcase the new products in our Wilton classes for a period of time, so I got some practice using the punches with Sugar Sheets. I didn't have much luck with the Sugar Sheets. I had a hard time getting them to cut cleanly, and after a while--even though I kept them sealed up--they started to dry out. When Sugar Sheets get dry, you can't fold the shapes you cut or they'll crack.

While I think the vast majority of instructors are very excited about these new punches, I lack enthusiasm. I try to be open minded, and I normally love learning new tricks and techniques, but this method doesn't really appeal to me. Maybe I'm too old school. Cake decorating to me involves squeezing icing out of a piping bag, texturing rolled fondant, or making gum paste flowers.

Plus, have you seen the price of the Sugar Sheets?! And you know, the punches aren't free. I'm not able to invest in a whole new round of equipment, and besides, I don't have the storage space. Now that I'm out of Sugar Sheets, I was hopeful that the punches would work with wafer paper, as that's much more affordable. But they don't.

So, I tried them with some rolled fondant, and they did fairly well. I think using gum paste or at least a half-fondant/half gum paste mix might work better. The fondant was a bit too soft and stretching was an issue, but not a huge problem.

Here's a close up of the roses and wee crown I made using shapes from the wavy cutter. The oval cutter made the bow loops and rather-too-large-to-be-whimsical butterfly. Or whatever you think it looks like.

I feel as though I'm still in the process of getting used to these tools, and I'm not quite as comfortable with them as I'd like to be. However, even though they're not be my favorite tools to work with, some of my students love them and have had a lot of fun getting creative with the shapes.