Thursday, May 22, 1997 at 9 pm Our topic tonight is 'Those flowers can't really be sugar'??? 

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Earlene's Part

Dolores is fishing and getting some good r & r. She will be back for the chat on the 29th. Shavkin has agreed to help me the two weeks she will be gone. Diane is very new to the chat room. She is a knowledgeable cake decorator and has some ideas that are different for you.

Did you check out the chat we did on may 1st on Dolores' web page. Http://w3.one.net/~proicer/index.html She put four of my wedding cakes (in her web page) down in my part of the chat info. Three of these cakes have sugar flowers on them and this week I'll tell you some of the ways to make your flowers look more realistic.

BUTTERCREAM ROSES. - use three shades of pink for pink roses. The centers of the roses should be the darkest color and perhaps the next three petals. Make the next row of petals (four or five) a shade lighter. Now make the final row of petals on the large roses even lighter. This gives your roses some life. If you make them all the same color they have no life. Even white roses should start with ivory in the center and work to white on the outer petals.

When I do roses from royal or gumpaste I follow this same pattern with the color. In addition with the royal and gumpaste I take a large brush like a makeup powder brush and gently brush across the top edges of the petals with a darker color to accent the roses. For instance if I wanted to make a rose to resemble a peace rose in royal icing. I would make a rose in soft yellow shades and after it is dry brush across the tops of the petals with pink powder. They make petal dust or dusting powders especially for use on your flowers. If you do not have access to these powders you might want to use powdered non-toxic tempera or pastel chalks for your dusting colors. If all you have access to is the chalk sticks - scrape them with a knife over wax paper or on a piece of window screen to make a powder. If your powdered color is to bright and harsh you can soften it by adding cornstarch.

PANSIES MADE WITH ROYAL ICING and striping the bag is very effective. Put a dark line of icing down the inside of the bag above where the narrow edge of your petal tip will be resting. Pansies made from royal icing will need some hand painting to make them realistic. You will need a fine line brush and airbrush colors or diluted paste colors. The paste color can be diluted with vodka, water or lemon extract depending on what you are going to painting on. (buttercream painting will need alcohol based liquid) solid gold royal pansies will need some brighter gold painted into the center of the flower and after that has dried fine black lines can be added fanning out from the center. After the black lines have dried then over pipe with royal icing the final touches of gold in the center of the pansies.

I Do Cakes: The brush in the Wilton student kit is not good for this. Cakestmper: try cake decorator pens instead of the paintbrush Pwd Sugar: FLowers and how to make sugar flowers more realistic.

ROYAL AND GUMPASTE FLOWERS AND LEAVES can be enhanced to look more realistic by using dusting powders, air brush, food color pens, petal dust, steaming, and dipping. For instance leaves are enhanced by several of these methods. Last night we were working on several types of leaves for the cakes this weekend.

The IVY LEAVES were cut out of gumpaste, a wire inserted, veined and the edges thinned from a soft shade of green a couple of days ago. Last night put a tiny amount of Crisco on one finger and touched each leaf randomly with the Crisco. Then the leaf was dipped into vodka colored dark green, removed from the vodka mixture and twirled until most of the excess color was removed. Everywhere the leaf was touched with the Crisco the color just runs off. Now we have variegated ivy leaves to use in the flower arrangements.

The ROSE LEAVES were also made with a soft green gumpaste. I airbrushed the leaves lightly with bright green and then sprayed again with a moss green. Spraying heavier on one side of the leaves to give the more realistic coloring. Because we want these leaves to have a nice shine we will put the teakettle on the stove and when we have a good steam flow these leaves will be steamed lightly. Just until they are shiny - be careful and don't melt your detail. Let them dry and do this several more times. Now these leaves will stay shiny for a long time.

I also have some STARGAZER LILIES to color. I will airbrush yellow down in the center of the flower petals, then some green, then the pink to burgundy rich color. The dots on these flower petals can be accomplished using the food color pens. Or non-toxic felt tip pens. Alstamaria have small slashes on their petals that need to be done also with the pens.

DragoDan: are we shading flowers with airbrush? excellent idea about the babybreath pwd!

Another way to give a slightly more realistic illusion is by using colored sugar or very fine coconut. Daisy centers that are brushed with piping gel and sprinkled with yellow or gold colored sugar has a more realistic appearance than just piped with royal icing. You can make a reasonable facsimile of baby's breath by using fine wires and making a loop on one end. Dip it in royal icing and then in very finely chopped white coconut. Wire several together for a more realistic look.

Pwd Sugar: Are the new gel colors strong in color

I hope these few little hints will help you with your flowers. Now lets see what Diane has for you tonight. 

Diane's Part

In order to enhance the WONDERFUL WORKMANSHIP OF THE FLOWERS, the LEAVES also need attention to realism and character. The leaves and flowers should compliment each other; not lessen the quality of the other because one of the two is not "up-to-par".

HINT: find a basic color of green that has the foundation of real-life leaves.

Also: find the technique to create a leaf with character.

The recipe to use for butter cream work is called, "BASIC GREEN". Here is the recipe: - shared by Diane Shavkin. Add the following paste food colors to 1/2 c of white butter cream icing: 1 tsp. Leaf green 1/4 tsp. Tulip red 1/8 tsp. Lemon yellow 1/8 tsp. Sky blue 1/8 orange.

Stir until well blended. Store in an air-tight container. Let set 24 hours before using. If the color ends up being a very deep green that almost looks black, then the mixture is a good one.

NOTE: to use the "basic green" mixture, use small amounts to make shades of green. Do not use the concentrated color alone. It needs to be mixed with butter cream icing.

Now, let's talk about color-blending because this technique is also very important in creating an eye-pleasing presentation of the cake. The eye should "softly" move across the entire display while in the viewing process.

Here is a setup procedure for creating colors for the cake: One bowl is needed for each of the colors that will go onto the cake. Three bowls will be used for the green icing leaves and three bowls will be used for the rose. (we'll use mauve).

1) make a medium shade of rose pink butter cream using paste food colors..

2) mix the brown food color into some butter cream and then add the brown butter cream (a dab at a time) to the medium shade of rose pink butter cream. Let the color "sit" to develop it's color.

Now, work with the three bowls of green using "basic green" for the first bowl of butter cream by placing an amount of white frosting into the bowl.

How much? Estimate the amount of green you will need to do your work and place 1/2 that amount into the bowl. Tint that frosting a soft, medium green using small amounts of the "basic green" until you get the color desired. Place one third of this medium green frosting into an empty bowl. Place another third of the medium green into another empty bowl. You should now have in front of you three bowls of medium green". In your mind, label the bowls a, b and c. "b" will remain the same color it is. "a" will now have frosting added to make it a very pale green. "c" will now have "basic green" added to it to make it a nice deeper shade of green. Now there are three shades of green to work with. Fill a bag no more than 1/2 full with each of the three colors of green (alternating colors so that the colors will blend, but not completely mix). Pipe the leaves using leaf tips when you are ready to do this task on the cake. Remember the mauve that is "sitting"?

We are now ready to work on that. Divide the mauve into thirds. Keep 1/3 of the mauve in the original bowl. Place 2/3 of the mauve into another bowl and mix an equal amount of white frosting into that bowl. Now, take 1/2 of this new, lighter shade we will call, "medium mauve" and place that in another bowl. Use an equal amount of white frosting and lighten this mauve. This color will now be called, "pale mauve". This method keeps the same original color and enables you to have lighter shades to work with. There are two things that you can do when you are using the shades of mauve to create a rose:

1) just take each of the shades of pink frosting and place them into a decorating bag so that the colors blend, but not completely. Or:

2. Place the deepest shade in one bag, the medium shade in another bag and the light shade in a third bag.

Use the deepest shade for the center of the rose and two or three of its petals, the medium shade for the next three petals and the lightest shade for the outer petals. Let's pretend we need yellow flowers to go with the mauve roses. To avoid a separation of the two colors by having yellow flowers and mauve flowers with the colors clashing, take a dab of the yellow butter cream and place this into the mauve frostings. Now, take a dab of the mauve butter cream and place this into the yellow frostings.

Remember that we do not want the colors to change, just keep the yellow flowers yellow with a touch of mauve so that the flowers have the appearance "they came from the same family of colors", yet, are still individual yellows and mauves. A very small dab of the green frosting can be placed each of the other frosting colors and each of the other colors can be placed into each of the greens. You have now created frosting colors that have that "common touch" of "belonging in the same family" yet, still are individual colors.

SUGGESTION: when tinting the frosting a color, add the paste food color (using a toothpick) to the frosting near one side of the bowl. Stir to blend. Just take parts of this tinted colored frosting and blend into the rest of the bowl of frosting until you have the desired shade. Whenever you add more color to get a deeper shade, mix this color into the frosting that is at one side of the bowl. If you get too dark of a color, you can always remove that small portion from the bowl. If you mix the color into the entire bowl, you might get too deep a color and have to remove a larger amount of frosting which would be more of a waste.

Emvac: How about doing sugared fresh flowers? I ve tried them but took too much time..any ideas.. (From Dolores - In American Cake Decorating Magazine - JUNE issue, it is WELL explained - complete with close up photos. You can get this magazine at book stores. Or visit their web site at: http://www.cakemag.com). Vgan965946: Do you work with fresh flowers? On wedding cakes ect.?

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