Finally I get to writing about gumpaste flowers.
Gumpaste is a sugar dough to which a type of gum has been added. Karaya gum or gum tragacanth are just an example.
The added gum makes the dough more pliable and easy to shape. It makes the dough dry hard and that pretty fast. So one essential key to working with gumpaste is to keep the dough you are not using covered from air.
You can make flowers just with cutters or support them with wires. Following are the steps to make a wired gumpaste rose.
1. Take a piece of wire and wrap it with flower tape. Stick it into a piece of foam to secure it while you work on the flower. Shape a cone from a little ball of gum paste and stick it onto the wire. To ensure hold the wire can be dipped in gum glue or piping gel before.
2. Roll out a small piece of gum paste in your desired colour thinner than 1/16″. With a round cutter cut two circles for the first row of petals. Flatten the tops of the petals with a ball tool or just your fingers. Clue the petals to the center and have them overlapping each other. If you want just a rose bud you can stop here and curl over the tips of the petals slightly. If you want to continue the rose it helps to let this part dry for a while first.
3. Then cut out three more petals. Again, flatten the top part of each petal and clue them onto the existing, dry center in the same manner as above. For a small rose you can stop here. If you continue let this part dry again.
4. For a bigger rose switch to a bigger size round cutter for the last row of petals. This time cut out five circles and flatten the tips as before. Again, clue the petals on overlapping each other. Curl back the very tips slightly. Once the rose is dried it can be given a shimmer with some petal dust. Or you can add a green calyx to the bottom of the flower.