Tales of a Tiered Cake – The Flowers Part 3

The photo I really want you to see is below, after this long paragraph. It’s below the paragraph, just in case my kids don’t want to see the finished rose. It’s been made for their double-engagement party which will take place at the end of June. So kids – read no farther if you don’t want to see the rose.
The finished rose that I described in the last post has some veining on the outer leaves which make them look so realistic. Also notice that the inner leaves are darker than the outer leaves. This happens to real roses as they fully open up. You can’t tell from the photo, but I didn’t do it exactly as I described – on the inner rows I forgot that the last petal in a row was supposed to be glued down on both sides. I also used the larger petal cutter for the last two rows, and turned the flower upside down for the last two rows so that the flower would be even more open and larger than I described last time (I actually didn’t do this on purpose, but just forgot exactly when to do these things). My point is, if you don’t do it exactly as described, it can still come out beautiful!

To make some rose leaves, you roll out some green dough, making it thicker at the bottom because this is where the wire is going to be inserted. Vein the leaf with a leaf veiner.
and then cut out the leaf using whatever size is appropriate (not like the photo which has the leaf being cut first)
I like to do one large leaf in the middle, and then two smaller leaves – roses tend to have leaves clumped three together.


You can see the veining that I’ve done. Line the center vein up with the pointed tip and then cut the leaf. If you haven’t rolled the dough thin enough, you can roll it long, re-vein and then recut, or you can use the ball tool around the edges to thin them. I think the first option works better, because the ball tool will remove the veining and if the leaf is too thick to begin with, you’ll get a ridge from the unrolled edge to the center of the leaf.
To attach wires to the leaves, use a very fine wire so that you can readily bend it. I’d like to use green, but I only have thin wire in white, so I’ll have to use petal dust to color it green (I have gauge 28 as my thinnest wire). Hold the petal between your thumb and index finger. With your other hand, dip the wire in egg white, wipe off excess and then slide the wire in about 1/4-inch using your fingers as guides to make sure that the wire is in the dough and not poking through. Place a thin-bladed knife in the center vein, and then fold the dough slightly to give the leaf some 3-d shape. You can give the leaf some more movement, and use cotton or batting to keep it from falling downward before it hardens.

I’ve decided not to photograph the bud – it’s exactly the same as the first steps of the rose, and then you put on the calyx, wrap the stem in tape and add a leaf. You’ll see the completed rose with leaves and bud on the finished cake.
I have one more rose to show you, and then there might be some more on the completed cake. The last rose is a long stemmed rose but I’ve only put on 4 rows of petals. I could have put on the 5th and not turned it upside down so that it would be more compact, but I liked the size and decided just to go ahead and leave it with the 4 rows.

Tales of a Tiered Cake #9 – The Flowers Part 2

Spoiler Alert!! Beth and Eric if you are reading my blog, the first flowers for your engagement cake are going to be shown. Do not read any farther if you want this to be a surprise.
Continuing on from the last post, I’ve made the center bud (above photo) and dabbed on some petal dust. I’m ready to put some petals on my bud. I'm going to do 5 or 6 rows, using two petal cutters that are close in size to each other. Each row will have the number of petals of the row number - i.e. row 1 has 1 petal, row 2 has 2 petals, etc. On one side of my placemat, I’ll smear some crisco, and I’ll dab some cornstarch on the other half. On the side with the crisco, I’ll roll a little bit of sugarpaste out so thin that I can see the pattern of the place mat underneath. Then I lift up the sugarpaste and run it over the cornstarch on the other side. Leaving the sugarpaste on the cornstarch side, I can now cut out a petal with the the smaller of the two petal cutters.


The excess sugarpaste gets removed immediately and placed in plastic wrap or a baggy. When you have cut more than 1 petal, the petals you aren't working on need to be covered with plastic wrap so they don't dry out.

Flowers will look most realistic if the edges are super thin. To this, I’ll run around the outside edge of the petal with the ball tool.

It will be too hard to color the dough after it is shaped, so I’m going to color each petal before it is placed.

Now I’ll put a stripe of egg white on the left side, middle and right side of the petal, and secure it to the bud.


(You can see that one side of the petal hasn't been pasted down yet).

For the 2nd row, you'll want to brush 1 side and the middle (not both sides)with egg white, because the second petal will get tucked under the first. The last petal of each row gets pasted on both sides. All other petals get pasted in the middle and one side only, so that the petals are overlapping.

The third row will have 3 petals and the 4th row will have 4 petals. Once you get to the 4th row you can ruffle the dough a little by pressing down harder with the ball tool, and you can add some veining if you like (press the dough into the veiner before cutting the petal). To make the 4th row less upright, you'll turn the petal over after it is ruffled, and then brush egg white only halfway up one side and the middle.
The 5th row will be made just like the fourth row. It needs to be much “looser” still, and the easiest way to have the petals arch backward is to put them on the flower upside down. Then you can hang it while you are preparing more petals, or if you are done, you can hang it until it is dry. Use cotton balls or batting to prevent the petals from sticking to each other, and to give the flower more shape.


Let the flower dry overnight and then you can turn it right side up.

To make the calyx, color some dough with greenish brown food coloring. Roll the dough, as above and use a calyx cutter to cut out the dough.

Thin the edges of the dough with the ball tool, and then drag a needle tool from the tips to the center, to sharpen the point and to force the calyx tips to turn upward. Poke the rose wire through the center of the calyx, brush on a dab of egg white in the center of the calyx and push it up onto the bottom of the rose.



Use the needle tool to redefine the hip.



Tomorrow I will work on making a rose bud and some rose leaves.

Tales of a Tiered Cake #8 – Sugar paste Flowers

I made these sugar paste flowers last year for Ann Del Vecchio's birthday cake. They were my first attempt at making flowers, and I think they came out rather well. I used instructions from Scott Clark Wooley's book, Cakes by Design. I must say, though, that I wouldn't have been able to follow the directions in the book if I hadn't also bought his dvd of the same name. I have volume 1 of the dvd, which doesn't include this flower (alstroemeria), but the dvd gave me the understanding of how to roll, vein, cut, color etc. I used some real alstroemeria as models for the coloring that I used, rather than using the picture in Scott's book. These colors fit in with Ann's color scheme, but also the real flowers had such wonderful detail in them that I wanted to duplicate. Scott not only sells his books and dvds, he carries all of the supplies that you need to make these lifelike flowers and actually has a company that makes veiners and molds to his specs. He's a great resource for work like this, and I highly recommend buying his dvds, if you plan on attemping sugar work. If you want to make lifelike sugar paste flowers, it's not easy and it's not cheap. You need lots of equipment, lots of time, and lots of space to work in. But you'll get rave reviews if you are successful, that's for sure.
For my tiered engagement cake I think that I am going to make some roses. I want to try some traditional roses - instructions for these are on my Wooley dvd, and I might like to try making an open rose. I think the directions should be similar to a Gallica Rose, which is described in Wooley's book, or a wild rose (also in the book) but with more petals.
Here are the items I will need to make my rose:

A foam backed placemat
a small rolling pin (made especially for sugar paste or fondant)
Petal and leaf veiners
2 sizes of petal cutters (they're sold in sets)
20 gauge green wire
wire cutter/needle nose pliers
sugar paste
cornstarch
medium ball tool (I highly recommend Wooley's tool)
tweezers
calyx cutters
green tape
brushes ( you need lots of these)
crisco
gloves (optional)
petal dust - at least 4-5 colors including green, yellow and 3 shades of red/pink
food coloring
styrofoam blocks
egg white
cotton or batting
a palatte pan for mixing colors
You can see why I mentioned that this is not a cheap endeavor!
To begin my rose, I'm using Satin Ice brand sugar paste. It comes in a large tub that you can buy at cake decorating stores and sites. I also made some of my own sugar paste using a recipe from Nicholas Lodge (you can Google that), another great sugar artist. I used that recipe rather than Wooley's because I was able to get Tylose powder locally, but not Gum Tragacanth, which is used in Wooley's recipe. I thought it might be nice to compare the paste that I buy compared to the one I make. I had tried some sugar paste from Wilton, but I didn't think it worked very well.
For the first rose that I make, I'm not going to color the dough. This way I'll be able to color the base of each petal with a little yellow, and leave some of the white showing through. This is how the roses in my back yard looks.


I need to form the center bud and put it on a wire so that I'll have something to hang onto and something to push into a piece of styrofoam for drying.
The bud needs to be the same height as the smallest cutter that I’m using. Here are my first 2 buds.


Well, the one on the left looks very long and the one on the bottom is very fat. I don’t know if they'll will work at all! I’ve made a little hip at the bottom, but I’m not sure if it’s big enough – I guess I’ll find out after I start wrapping the leaves around. The bud needs to dry overnight before I start adding the petals. Stay tuned!