Directions for Making Sugar Flowers

Make edible sugar flowers to decorate a cake using gum paste.

Tasty and eye appealing, you do not have to be a baker to make your own sugar flowers. The main ingredient used to create these, gum paste, can be found in packages from craft stores or bakers' supply shops. If you cannot locate it, make your own at home with sugar, water and liquid glucose. Working with gum paste to make sugar flowers feels like using molding clay. With a little practice, you will be molding your own sugar flowers like a professional.

Things You'll Need

• Colored gum paste
• Rolling pin
• ½-inch circle cookie cutter
• 1-inch circle cookie cutter
• 1 ½-inch circle cookie cutter
• Bowl of water
• Paintbrush
• Spherical lollipop
• Scissors
• 1 to 2 inch wide flower shaped miniature cookie cutter

Instructions

1. Roll the colored gum paste into a 1/4-inch thick sheet.

2. Cut out from the gum paste the following: one ½-inch wide circle, six 1-inch circles and five 1 ½-inch wide circles.

3. Dip a paintbrush into water and lightly wet the top half of an unwrapped lollipop to make the sugar on the sucker sticky.

4. Snip a slit ¼-inch deep from the edge to the center of the ½-inch wide circle.

5. Wrap the cut circle around the top half of the sucker in a cone shape, pointing upward.

6. Dampen the bottom half of the sucker with the paintbrush dipped in water and attach three of the 1-inch wide circles, evenly spaced, to the bottom of the suckers. Arrange the top half of these three circles to resemble petals.

7. Attach the remaining three 1-inch circles by dampening the base of the sucker and pressing the bottom half of the circles to the sucker. Fold the top half of the circles back so your sugar flower looks like an opened rose.

8. 

   Use these sugar roses as a model for your own.

   Follow the same procedure for adhering the remaining five 1 ½ -inch wide circles as petals to the sucker. Shape the portion of these circles not attached to the sucker to resemble petals.

9. Cut off any of the lollipop stick extending below the sugar flower and set the flower on your cake.

Tips & Warnings

• Alternatively, use flower shaped cookie cutters to cut out sugar flowers from the 1/4-inch thick rolled gum paste, and arrange these sugar flowers on your cake.

References

• Cake Journal: Making Sugar Flowers
• Baking 911: Decorating Cakes with Gum Paste
• Baking 911: Bubble Gum Roses

Resources

• Recipezaar: Gum Paste Recipe
• Food Network: Tips for Working with Fondant or Gum Paste