Well, I survived this week, but barely…I just finished catering a wedding for 200 people!!!  I did the wedding cake and all the appetizers (pictures will be up soon).  This was my first time catering a wedding for so many people and boy was it a lot of work.  I was absolutely exhausted, but I thought that I owed my loyal blogger friends a good post and another giveaway, so here it is!!!  For this tutorial I thought I would show you how to make easy sugar flowers that are simply gorgeous.  You just need a few tools of the trade and your flowers will turn out beautifully.  The giveaway book, Sweet & Simple Party Cakes, by May Clee Cadman has a lot of great photos and techniques for decorating cakes and I thought that this book in particular would be a great tool for any baker/cake decorator to have.  So to enter the random drawing for the book just leave a comment before Wednesday night and you will be entered.  Good luck!

So to start off making these flower decorations you need to mix together 50% fondant and 50% gumpaste. The fondant helps with the smoothness and the gumpaste helps you to be able to roll out the dough very thin and it also allows the dough to harden quicker. 

Then you can color the dough any color you would like.  Next roll the dough out on a flat surface with a little cornstarch to prevent sticking.  You need to roll it out very thin so that you have nice, delicate petals…about 1/8″-1/16″.  Then instead of using a petal cutter you can free hand some petals of your own. Just use a sharp small knife or an exacto knife and cut out some teardrop shapes about 3/4″-1″ tall.  

Next you need to take each petal and use a balling tool to thin out the edges of the petals and give them a more realistic shape.  You do this by placing the petal on a soft surface and gently rubbing the tool back and forth.  (As you might notice in my pictures I didn’t have my balling tool with me, but this tool did the same job basically) Now if you don’t have this tool try using the back of a spoon to achieve the same effect.

Now you need to continue doing this to all five petals for the base layer.  Place some plastic wrap or paper towels on a concave surface, like a tiny bowl, to create the forming shape for the petals.  Lay each petal down, overlapping slightly and adhering them to one another with a dab of water.  You can also use the aide of tiny pieces of paper towel or plastic wrap to help create the dips and curves of the petals while they are drying.

After the base five petals are down cut some more and thin them out too.  Then place the next row of flowers on top.  You can use your judgement with how many petals to add, but always do it in odd numbers…it makes the flower look more realistic.  Again, use the aide of paper towels or plastic wrap to help give your flower realistic curves with it is drying.

To finish off the flower, cut a small round circle out and thin it out just as you would a petal.  Place it in the center of your flower and as always adhere it with a little water.  Now let you flower dry until it is completely hard…a couple hours or overnight.

Once the flower dried I used different colors of luster dust to give it a more realistic look and because Iike the shiny look of it.  Just dust on the luster or petal dust however you want, but be minimal…you can always add more, but you can’t take it off.  I then tried two different centers…for one center I brushed yellow luster dust and then added one single pink dragee.   For the other center, I put one sugar pearl and added more yellow luster dust to make it look like it had pollen on it.

Now just place your flower decoration on top of a cute cupcake and enjoy your beautiful creation!