Making a Bow with Gum Paste

Video Transcript

"In this segment I'm going to show you how you can make bows out of gum paste to accent your cakes or centerpieces. You're going to need gum paste of whatever color you prefer, a straight edge ruler, something to cut with, a small paring knife, and your small rolling pin, corn starch so that it doesn't stick to the board or for rolling out. Before I start cutting the pieces to show you how to piece I'm going to show you this one that's drying over here. To give the added detail to the edge of the ribbon we just used a pattern cutter that you can find at any local sewing store, that sells sewing notions. That's all we did was about a quarter or an inch on the edge, roll this little tool and it gave it this detail. Alright, and the next bow were going to make I'm going to show you how you can add another texture to your bows by using these textured, embossed rolling pins. You can find these on-line at any supplier that sells gum paste tools and they just make it fun and add another texture to your bows. So here I have gum paste that's been rolled out with my regular roller and I've rolled it out to be about almost an eight of an inch. Then we're going to take this textured roller and pressing real firmly, it takes a second to get it going, try to keep even pressure and it adds a really nice texture. You're going to take your straight edge. Now, I have this fancy gum paste cutter that has a small wheel on one side and a larger wheel on the other. You can find these at your cake decorating stores too and they're where all the gum paste tools are. Now to make this size, average bow, I cut about one inch wide strips using my straight edge. Go down both sides and then I measure it to be about. I'm going to make three, six inch strips. I'm going to take away all the scraps that I'm not going to use. I'm also going to cut a center piece that's going to hold those two bows together. This I will just kind of free-hand. It's about two and a half inches wide. I'm just going to curl it around and on the backside I'm going to give it a pinch together. You can wiggle it up and make it look like real ribbon. I'm going to set it aside to dry. That's going to be my center. Now for my two tails I'm going to cut notches in the bottom for a little finishing touch on the end of my ribbon. I'm going to set it on my foil former over here to dry. Just play with it if you want to give it a little wave to the end. Just form your foil that way. I'll do the same thing on this side, giving it a little V and laying that to dry. Now for your loop you need a piece of tissue for this and your going to bring that tissue inside your loop so it'll hold it open to dry and give it a pinch. Now you set those to dry and when you're ready to assemble you just use your icing or royal icing if you want to make these ahead of time and have them dry real hard you can use royal icing or just your regular icing. You would just take and hook your parts together and then add your tails on and put them where you would like on your cake. That's how you can make bows out of gum paste."