Garden Party Cake

My last cake decorating class was last night. We were going to be covering a cake with fondant and them decorate it with flowers we made in previous classes. The book that is given with the class has some ideas in it, however, I didn't feel like making any of them. I purchased the 2011 Wilton Yearbook awhile back, so I decided to look through it and see if i could get some ideas.

I found a cake titled "Tinkerbell's flowing flower garden" I took some inspiration from that and made this:

Because this was a last minute decision, I had to make new flowers. I did have some extra flowers from the cupcakes I made a few days before, but I needed something else. My birthday is coming up and I wanted the cake to be very girly. I made a whole bunch of flowers using gum paste. I tinted my fondant with Wilton icicng colors, in leaf green. The I used sky blue, violet, rose and yellow for my flowers.

In class I added a ribbon like border using a new technique I learned. I also used Luster dust on the flowers to give them a shimmer and a little extra pop. I used butter cream to "glue" the flowers to the cake and Voila!

The cake came out wonderful and i am very very proud. I'm through for the time being with classes, but I am so ready to use all my new skills to make more incredible cakes!

Fondant and Gumpaste

Lately, I've been working a lot with gumpaste and fondant. Individually and together, ( yes, you can mix them together)  Gum paste is extremely strong. You can roll it paper thin and not even think twice about it ripping. Fondant isn't as durable, but its easily flavored and colored.


I had worked with fondant before, there were a few things I did wrong, that lead me to believe that it was hard. For example, while rolling it out, I covered my rolling surface with powdered sugar. This is, somewhat O.K., however, it leaves powdered sugar all over the surface and if you fondant is colored you can see it. It also can cause the fondant to get very dry, it will crack and most likely fall apart. Crisco is the answer. It keeps it from sticking and is clear.

Gum paste dries super fast and must be worked with quickly. The plus is that it doesn't take long to hold it's shape and it gets nice and hard. However, if your a slow worker, you may be in trouble.

A few tips when working with these items are as follows:

• Keep your hands "crisco'd" not too much though
• Don't over work your fondant when trying to make it soft
• A little color goes a long way
• Be patient and don't give up
• Flowers arn't perfect, so your shouldn't be either
• Have everything ready ahead of time, as i said it dries out quickly

I'll be back to share some of my creations with you soon.