Gum Paste

The mom and I have wanted to do a cake decorating class offered at Michaels for the longest time. It just hasn't really worked out with me away from home or mom working or whatever. Maybe it'll work out for us to do a class eventually but until then we'll just have to try some stuff out on our own. That's exactly what we did with gum paste. We bought a "just add water" tub of make your own gum paste. We found out it would've been far easier to buy the ready to use gum paste. We peeked at some books at Michaels and saw you can make Callalillies with a heart cookie cutter.

To make a Callalily, cut out a heart. Then, lightly flatten the edge of the point of the heart to give it a more realistic look. You're supposed to do this with some fancy tool and on top of a sponge. Well I didn't have that fancy tool. Instead I used a 1/4 tsp measuring spoon to improvise. I learned quickly don't press too hard! Next I overlapped the heart around, overlapping the curved edges. I made a cone for the flower to dry out of some tin foil and called it good.

To make the center, I mixed in some yellow food dye and rolled it. We had some edible gold flakes so I tried rolling the center in some. They didn't really stick all that well. I stuck some wire in the bottom of the center and hung it upside down on a basket handle to let it dry over night. After letting both the center and the flower dry over night, I put the center and wire through the flower. I don't really know how to make the center stick to the flower though. You can cover the wire with floral tape to make the wire stay somewhat.

Then I decided to try and do something for fun. I rolled some yellow, red, blue and brown. I made a yellow brick road with a toothpick making a light impression on the gum paste. then I made 2 blobs that looked like shoes and made the heel separately to attach after they had dried a little bit. Then I made a blue blob and covered it with brown and molded it into a cube to make a basket. I ended up accidentally breaking the handle so I made another one with white since I ran out of brown. Then I put the shoes and basket on the yellow brick road and called it good.