White and Gold Gum Paste Roses

My class project this week required that I make all my decorations ahead of time because we wouldn't really have enough time in class to make them. 

I decided to make a cake that had gum paste roses on top. And never having made them before, I was excited for the challenge. 

I saw a tutorial online for making a gum paste rose with only a circle cutter, so I was prett confident that I could handle it. 

I started by cutting out my gum paste circles. I smoothed the edges with a ball tool and left them in a flower former to help them begin to dry. 

I found that working with them quickly, and not making too many up in advance, was best. Letting them dry too long would make them crack a little when I tried to mold them. 

I bought some simple rose cores from Wilton to make this process a little faster/easer. It REALLY helped! I highly suggest the splurge! 

I started with the small petals, applying them around the core until it looked like a small rose bud center.

I made sure to put the leaves in groups of  3 & 5 as I went around to help it look more like a rose. 

After I had a row of 3 and 5 small petals, I moved on to the medium sized petal. Placing 3, then 5 petals around the rose bud I had already created. Making sure to turn the petals out and shaping them as I went.

Then the largest leaves got put on (also in groups of 3 & 5). And I ended up with something that looked pretty close to a real rose. 

And I kept going until I had 6 roses finished. 

Then I dusted all over the petals with pearl dust and outlined the petals with a gold luster dust to give them dimension and make them look 'antiqued'. 

Excited to see how they look ontop of the cake tomorrow!!! :) 

Hearts & Flowers

Last night, being Valentine's Day, I wanted to bake and make something fun. So, I pulled out all of my leftover frosting from class last week and worked on some different types and shapes of flowers, as well as some heart cuz well...it's Valentine's Day :)

Buttercream Flowers

Ooohhh! I am so excited to share this with you this week! One of my favorite weeks so far (saying a lot since its only my 3rd cake class ever! Haha!).
I am extremely excited with the many color and size possibilities for these flowers. Can't wait to play with them more!

The first flower I learned was a simple 5 petal flower, which could be used for any flower from a wild rose to a small cherry/apple blossom. Very versatile!

The next flower (one of my personal favorites!) is the sweet pea. A very simple and small flower, which can be piped onto a rose nail or directly on the cake. I love this delicate, small flower. Could be beautiful all over a cake in various colors.

We learned two different methods to make the next flower, a daffodil. Both worked but the second method is my fav! I think it just looks a little more natural, it does require a little more finesse but it's worth it. We also used orange piping gel for the inside detail. I love these! Super cute for a springtime cake!

And now onto our regular roses. We are making our roses on rose sticks, which I originally thought would be harder than the nail but I was super impressed with look of the finished roses. The first rose was a rose I made after switching colors, giving me the ombré effect. The second rose was just my traditional rose. I know they need work! Lol! 

After those we moved onto daisies. I had a harder time with these, but there were two techniques and the second (resulting in a hippy style daisy) was the one that I gravitated towards. It was easy and produced a nice result.

After that we worked on some bachelor buttons, one of my favorite real flowers. They turned out well, but I think I would've liked them better if I had colored them more accurately.

Our final flowers were the VERY basic drop flowers. Pretty simple buy used often in cake decorating.