The Evil Cake Genius has a love/hate relationship with Gum Paste Flowers. She loves the look, but HATES making them. They're time consuming, tedious, and never look as good as the real thing. So for years, she just let God do the work (via a florist). Until she learned these 5 tricks that actually made her love making gum paste flowers. And just in time, too, because when two Minions fall in love and get married, there's gonna be one hell of a cake!
Here are the little love-minions in action (insert cute couple squee here). Now onto the promised 4 Tips that will make you a Gum Paste Flower Master:
1) Get the right Cutters/Veiners for the job
There are so many great cutter/veiner sets available now! We love all of these by Petal Crafts, because they come with complete instructions!! And the ones by Simply Nature? Don't get us started...to. die. for.
2) Invest in a good Pasta Roller
The key to Gum Paste Flowers is THIN, THIN, THIN petals!! They look more realistic, but they also hold their shape instantly if they're thin enough. You just can't roll them thin enough by hand, so you may as well invest in the right tool for the job, and these pasta rollers by Atlas Italy are the best in the world! They even have a 10 year warrenty to prove it!
3) Use the Right Gum Paste
And it just so happens, that the ECG has done the research for you on this one! We've tried a ton of them, and the PME England Gum Paste is hands down the best! It rolls through the pasta machine on an 8!! An 8, people!! Without cracking or tearing. That's some pretty impressive stuff!
We've made it simple...just click on the photo of JennAlex's flowers to see all of the products we used to make them! Or shop all of our Flower Making Essentials HERE
Still not convinced? That leads us to tip number 4...
4) Consult the Experts
There are people out there who are really good at this! Our favorite is Suzanne Esper. This girl can make some insane gum paste flowers. We've seen them first hand when we travel to the UK. But YOU don't have to travel to the UK to learn from her!
She's started an online Night School for Sugar Flowers. The Evil Cake Genius was blown away by her methods and tricks for making spectacular flowers, and doing them in about half the time the ECG takes to make not-so-spectacular flowers. We followed her tutorial for the Ranunculous, and made these beauties in no time. We even had Jenna's Bridesmaids help out! And trust us...if a group of wine-sipping bridesmaids can do it, so can you!!
