What is the best combination to make sugarpaste flowers? 50-50 gumpaste and fondant or all gumpaste!

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Permalink Reply by Laura Smith on June 15, 2010 at 2:08pm

I find 100% gumpaste works the best. Since it dries faster and harder, I am able to get much better definition in my flowers (no drooping, sagging, etc.). Most people do not intend to eat sugarpaste flowers, so the gumpaste taste is not a factor. If you want to make flowers that can be eaten, I would suggest making them out of royal icing - they harden well, but can still be bitten into without a trip to the dentist.

Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Deah on June 15, 2010 at 2:20pm

I agree with Laura, straight gumpaste is better for flowers. Even a 50/50 mix is going to taste awful. I tell my customers that the gumpaste is edible just not pallatable.

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Permalink Reply by Laura Smith on June 15, 2010 at 2:32pm

That's good info for clients, Deah...I believe I'll hijack it if you don't mind! :)

Deah Aldridge said:

I agree with Laura, straight gumpaste is better for flowers. Even a 50/50 mix is going to taste awful. I tell my customers that the gumpaste is edible just not pallatable.

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Permalink Reply by Sweet Art Cakes! on June 17, 2010 at 10:49am

Thanks Ladies..all great suggestions and will be using strictly 100 gumpaste to make my flowers.

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Permalink Reply by jeri c on June 17, 2010 at 4:08pm

I agree... most do not eat the flowers. If you are making accents for your cakes that will be added directly to the cake for exapmle a flat flower put on the side of the cake... use all fondant. If you are making real looking sugarpaste flowers... 100% gumpaste or the mexican paste from GSA works well too you have to mix it up but it is nice. Or Marcella Sanchez's flower paste is nice too but very expensive and very delicate to work with.

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Permalink Reply by Sweet Art Cakes! on June 17, 2010 at 4:20pm

Thanks Jeri
I used to in the past make the flowers 50-50 and people were happy to eat it..now that I have switched to 100% sugarpaste I am hearing some yucks...lol! from the kiddies..usually like making kiddies cakes.but they would still fall falt after a while..esp. if it is extremely humid in florida...I am not sure what it is but the kids really like to eat the flowers and what ever model I have on the cake..for e.g the mermaid in this picture I have...the ate her with yumms and mmms afterwards :)
Thansk for your help...I agree Marcella is very expensive..even by globalsugarart.com prices...

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Permalink Reply by diane kilgore on June 18, 2010 at 11:26am

hi all, i used to use gumpaste, but storing the flowers was a pain, to easy to chip, like ri it's edible if you want to break a tooth, so i warn people, same if you're decorating and putting tiny dot on a cake, nothing worse expecting soft cake and crunching down on something, fondant doesn't taste all that good anyway, i make a real easy marshmallow, better than wilton's every one hate's it. i either use 50/50 or just fondant, 50/50 holds up better, fondant is good but takes forever to dry actually i think it never dries, unless it's months, i've made figurines and use 50/50 holds up much better, as you probably know fondant wedding cakes are so expensive, my daughter-in- law, for 250 got prices from $2,000 and up and most of the time when they serve the cake they peel the fondant off.

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Permalink Reply by Kandy Shepherd on June 19, 2010 at 7:12am

I was taught to use fondant and add some gumtex powder for my flowers. It takes about 24hrs to harden.

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Permalink Reply by Sweet Art Cakes! on June 19, 2010 at 7:36am

That is what i was taught initially..a local cake decorator offers classes and I first strated learnign to make flowers using 50-50 fondant and gum tex to mkae flowers but then I am now taking a Wilton course and they say 100% gumpapste...hence why I turned to the forums to see what others are doing and which method works best for them..thanks for sharing :)

Kandy Shepherd said:

I was taught to use fondant and add some gumtex powder for my flowers. It takes about 24hrs to harden.

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