What I've been Up To-- My Sugar Flower Garden

So if you're wondering why I haven't blogged in a little bit...

I've grown quite the sugar garden in my living/ dining room.  All of these little children (and more) will be used on a competition cake on September 12.  My sampling includes something like 30 huge roses, 5 rose buds, 60 stephanotis, 40 hydrangea, and 20 dendrobium orchids.  I still need to make more hydrangea, plus add some calyxes and leaves, hydrangea buds, and dusting.  :)  Plus, you know, ultimately make the cake and stuff.

And the fall semester started this week-- it's shaping up to be a little busy. But hopefully I'll share a thing or two with you before my cake monstrosity on September 12.  

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who 'Like'-ed my Threadcakes entry.  Even though I don't feel like I will place, I am so pleased with how it came out and at how much everyone supported it.  Results should be up in the next few days.  

Is there anything in particular you (my wonderful readers) would like me to write about before September 12?  Edible pearls?  Cake pricing?  My personal views on the correlations between cake and engineering?  :)

Wilton Course 3: Flowers!

In the third week of Wilton Course 3 we learned 4 new royal icing flowers, all of which involved the lily nail set.  Unfortunately, I wasn't thrilled with the consistency of my royal icing.  I didn't want my tips to clog or my hands to break, so I made it a little on the thin side.  Since I was in class, I just had to deal with it...

We first learned the lily:

Here I think my white icing was a little stiff, but there was a tiny bit of green in the center that was too soft, which made it hard to keep the stamens where I wanted them.  But still, I think they're a very pretty flower.  The stamen are pre-purchased and not edible, though not toxic-- they're made from paper and royal icing. 

Next, we learned the poinsettia:

The photo quality isn't great, and a couple of my petals broke in transit, but you get the idea.  I don't think these really look like poinsettia, but whatever! :)

Next we learned the petunia:

I really like this flower, though I think it looks more like a hibiscus with the wrong stamen... I had to leave this one in the foil because it wasn't ready to be removed.  My icing was way too soft on this one and especially the next one, the morning glory:

You can see it kinda lost its shape because the icing was so soft.  And it shifted a little in transit, which is why it's lopsided.  Fortunately, if I ever make these for a cake, I'll be at home and can have more control over these factors.  :)

As a preview for what's coming this week, I've been working on fondant roses to go on my tiered cake that we'll make this Thursday.  These have been very time consuming-- I've probably worked on them for 10+ hrs to make about 40 roses... and they're still not done!  And not all are full sized!

Here are some full sized ones:

Mostly medium and some rosebuds:

And yet some more....

Just like a lot of stuff in the confectionery world, it's a lot of work!  I hope the cake comes out good...

Fondant, Filigree, and a Rose

Yesterday, I took a beginning fondant course at the Cake Art Party Store.

To start off, we learned the basics of covering a fondant 'cake,' but for learning purposes, we used an 8" styrofoam dummy tier.

We coated the dummies with a thin layer of buttercream, then carefully applied the rolled fondant.  In class, we used Pettinice fondant, which was quite a bit softer than the Satin Ice I had worked with previously.  I don't think it tastes as good, but at least it was easy to knead. 

We rolled out the fondant on large pieces of upholstery plastic with a little shortening to prevent sticking.  This way, we didn't have to roll the fondant back on to our rolling pins; we could simply apply the fondant directly from the upholstery plastic and gently peel it away.

After we got our cakes covered, we worked with some stiffened fondant to create the roses and leaves on the top of the cake.

To stiffen our fondant, we kneaded in a little bit of Tylose powder.  This makes the fondant a little more like gumpaste; in fact, stiffened fondant can also be created by mixing one part fondant to one part gumpaste. 

After the roses, our instructor demonstrated different molds.  The course included a few plastic molds, but she also had some silicon molds to demo.  Also with stiffened fondant, you can simply press the fondant into a mold dusted with either cornstarch or luster dust, and then gently remove the fondant.  We applied the molded pieces to the cake by simply brushing the application surface with a little water to make the fondant sticky.  This is how I made the fleur-de-lis on the sides of the cake, as well as the filigree molds on the top.

I finished my cake with pearls that I rolled out of fondant and rolled in luster dust.  There is a piped string border with royal icing, but everything else on the cake is just fondant.

 

 Too bad this cake can't be eaten...