Little Star Blossoms

I use these little star blossoms a lot as filler flowers or extra decorations, they are super easy to make, so I thought I would share a quick tutorial on how to make them. My five year old son can make these competently, so there are no excuses for not having a go!

Equipment

To make them you will need

A little six petal flower cutter (this one is from the stephanotis set from sunflower sugarart, UK, USA)

A Dresden Tool

Something for the centre (I used a JEM daisy centre)

You will also need:

Some sugar flower paste / gum paste or some sugar paste with CMC / Gum Tragacanth mixed in to make it less sticky and more pliable. Colour your flower paste before you start. I have used Sugarflair's cream gel colour here.

A little vegetable fat (Trex / Crisco)

A little cornflower (preferably in one of those muslim pouches that sugar crafters like)

A board for cutting out on

A foam flower making board

Making the Flowers

Rub a little vegetable fat (Trex / Crisco) onto a cutting board. The vegetable fat helps keep the flower paste on the board, whilst you roll and also stops the flowers from sticking when you have cut them out. Roll out you paste thinly and cut out a few more flowers than you think you need. (Something usually goes a bit awry with one or two, so best to make allowances for that and then hopefully it won't happen)

Next dust your foam board with a little cornflower and use the Dresden tool to shape the petals, as shown below, by gently rocking the Dresden tool from side to side. Cornflour is every sugar crafters secret weapon, a lot of the techniques simply won't work without it.

Continue all the way around till all the petals are shaped

Make a centre for the flower, I have used this little daisy centre by JEM, sugar pearls make good centres too.

Finally, finished flowers on a floral bouquet cookie. This cookies is currently undergoing a design review. In my head it looked brilliant, when made, I felt the design doesn't quite work. I still like the idea, so it will get revisited, one day!

Projects that use these flowers, or very similar ones

Naked Glamorous Chocolate Brownies

Daphne's Birthday Cake

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Blossomology Part two - with a little help from our talented friends

A month or so ago, I was asked to make a cake to be raffled at my workplace for charity. I felt so honoured to be asked, but, also a little unworthy, after all, its just me, so I really wanted to pull out all the stops and make a cake that I could feel really proud of and tempt all my lovely friends and colleagues into spending lots of money on raffle tickets.

I had two cakes in mind that I wanted to make. Many of my friends and colleagues were asking for a giant cupcake, as I had recently made one, for a colleague, as a parting gift. The cake that I wanted to make was a beehive cake.

In the end, I decided to make both. This was also an opportunity for me to practise some more sugar flowers and these are the sugar blossoms that I made to decorate the Giant Cupcake. More about that Giant Cupcake in the next post.

In blossomology I wanted to try and make lots of different blossoms from the same cutter, to practise some different skills. We are very lucky in the cake decorating world that there are so many great companies and talented crafters out there making kits and tools, that, even those, like me, with little artistic talent, can make sugar flowers. One of my favourite companies is Sunflower Sugarart they have UK and USA websites. I have used their blossom mould and cutter set to make these sugar blossoms.

To make these blossoms I used:

The blossom set from Sunflower Sugarart

A small rolling pin

A cutting board or mat

Petal / Gum Paste coloured with Sugarflair's Ivory / Caramel

A small about of vegetable fat (Trex / Crisco)

A small amount of cornflour / cornstarch

A foam sugarcraft pad

Lustre dust, I used Edible Arts Pearlised Toffee

This is how:

1. Rub a little of the vegetable fat onto your cutting board. This helps the petal paste stick whilst you are rolling and cutting and helps it not stick at the same time.

2. Roll out petal paste, really thin. Officially, it is supposed to be so thin, you can seen through it, but I usually go a little thicker

3. Use the cutter to cut out a blossom and give the cutter a little wiggle to neaten the edges.

4. Sprinkle a little cornflour on your foam pad, then place the cut blossom on top. Use a ball tool around the edges (half on / half off) to thin and frill them a little. This helps make the blossoms look more natural and realistic, you can omit this stage for a more stylised blossom.

5. Lift the blossom and place it on the bottom half of the mould. Use the ball tool to help settle it in position

6. Press the two halves of the mould together to impress the veining onto the blossom

7. Gently lift the moulded blossom out

8. Brush with a little petal or lustre dust to add a little magic

9. Settle the veined blossoms into the wells of a paint palette to dry out and harden out.

I wanted to make some smaller flowers too, so I used one of my Orchard Products cutters with the sunflower Sugarart veiner to make some smaller ones.

Sweet little things aren't they?

Check back soon to see these on the Giant Cupcake

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Blossomology

One of my aims for this year is to learn more about the art of sugar flowers. I have had some goes before, some successful and some less so. I sometimes think that my nemesis, will be the sugar rose, as one can't really be a proper cake decorator until the art of the sugar rose is mastered and so far, I haven't made a sugar rose that I am happy with.

Ringing in my ears are the words of Ann Pickard when I went on her animal modelling course, I remember her saying that you can't make a pig if you haven't made a duck and I am hoping that the same theory applies to sugar flowers.

With this in mind, I have started with the most simple form of sugar flower, the blossom and have set myself a mini challenge of seeing how many different types of blossom I can make with one blossom cutter and a ball tool. Actually, I have used a set of three cutters, but, only one at a time and another tool or two may have snuck in when inspiration struck.

This blossom (5 petal) cutter is one of a set of four from Orchard Products. All the blossoms below are made from white sugar floristry paste.

One

Plain Blossoms

The largest size of blossom just cut and left to dry in a paint palette to give it some shape. Probably the first sugar flower that any of us ever made.

Two

The Ball Tooled Edge Blossom

Just about every sugar flower you ever make starts with ball tooling the edge and so this is how I am going to start too. This technique took me a while to grasp, I read about it and watched Youtube videos about it until one day, the phrase I heard, that made the penny drop, was quite simply half-on / half-off. Meaning that your ball tool must be half-on / half-off your petal edge for the thinning to work. The other absolutely key thing is you must have cornflower / corn starch underneath.

I roll my petal paste quite thickly, as this is supposed to be easier for beginners. It is amazing how much the flower grows from its cut size.

The centres are piped with a little pipping gel mixed with superwhite, as I couldn't be bothered to make a whole batch of royal icing.

Three

The Cupped Petal Blossom

The petals are cupped by using a ball tool, in a circular motion in the centre of the petal. This technique is  a little trickier than it looks. It needs a larger ball tool that you would imagine and a serious amount of cornflour / corn starch underneath. If the flower is moving around your ball tool in a circular motion, then you are probably doing this right.

Four

The Triple Blossom

Three of the smallest sized blossoms, ball tooled lightly and arranged on top of each other and then the petals carefully raised around the tiny end of the ball tool to form the flower

Five

The Delicately Veined Blossom

This is the smallest size of blossom again, lightly ball tooled around the edge and lightly veined with a frilling stick.

Six

The Whirygig Blossom

This whirligig blossom was really fiddly to make and I am not sure I like it, though I thought Iwould show you anyway. It is made by cupping the petals, then cutting off the individual petals, pinching them to shape and them joining them back together again.

Seven

The Japanese Cherry Blossom

My favourite. This uses the largest size of cutter and the veining is created with a First Impressions Floramat veiner, you can get a similar result by pressing a shell tool on the petal. A little piping gel is used to pipe the centre and then tiny artificial stamens are added. I bought the stamens at my local sugar craft store. They are not edible, but they look sweet.

Eight

The Lace Blossom

The largest size of blossom, ball tooled and embossed with a lace mat. The lace mat had a bit of a blossom pattern to these are quite lovely just as they are, I added some gold pears thought for a bit of a vintage look

For the sake of clarity, the tools I have referred to are below, from top to bottom are shell tool, ball tool, frilling tool

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Swirly Champagne Sugar Cookie Cups

When I was making my Champagne Celebration Cookies I wanted to make something else that was small and stylish, a bit like a sweet canapé and came up with these little cookie cups. 

To make the Cookie Cups

I used the same champagne flavoured cookie dough I had made for the Vintage Brooch Cookies. One quantity of dough makes about 48 mini muffin sized cookie cups

Method

1. Spray or coat a mini muffin pan with some non stick baking spray.

2. Roll the cookie dough out about 1cm or a scant half an inch thick.

3. Use a fluted round cutter and gently push the cut out cookie dough into the mini muffin pan.

4. Bake at 180 C / 350 F for about 8 to 12 minutes

The best way I found to push the dough in was using the knuckle of my finger. You might have to experiment a bit to get the right sized cutter for your tin.

Royal Icing Swirls

Mix up a batch of your favourite royal icing, I like to use the Wilton Meringue Powder and simply follow the recipe that comes with the can. There is just something very luscious about the smell of this meringue powder, I can't quite decide what it is reminiscent of.

This simple swirl is piped using a medium sized star nozzle / tip. I used a Wilton 22. Hold the piping bag at 90 degrees to your work surface and pipe the swirl from the outside in, when you reach to top, stop squeezing and pull the bag up to get the point. Piping with royal icing is an absolute dream, especially when you are more used to buttercream.

Royal icing will dry hard over a few days, so making a swirl of this size might not be terribly pleasant to eat. If you are going to serve these within a day or so of piping, they will be fine, otherwise, stir in a teaspoon or so of glycerin to keep the icing soft. The glycerin will also give the icing an extra hit of silky smoothness.

Teeny Tiny Glittery Blossoms

Equipment

You will need:

Small amount of petal or gum paste
Lace embossing mat*
Peach lustre dust (I used sugarflair shimmering peach)
Edible Glitter (This is Edable Art Baby PInk**
Small blossom cutter (Mine from a Wilton Rose cutter set)
A little edible glue
A couple of small clean paintbrushes


*I used the sugarveil mantilla mat, just because that was what I happened to have handy. Sugarveil mats are quite expensive (though good value for their size). You can buy small pieces of mat from some suppliers now, or you can sometimes find squares on ebay.

** this is the latest advise from the Food Standards Agency in the UK re edible glitter. These blossoms can easily be removed before eating if you are concerned.

Method

1. Roll out the petal or gum paste really thin, just a couple of millimetres.
2. Roll it a little more on top of your embossing mat, carefully peel it off and turn it over
3. Cut out enough little blossoms for your cookies cups and a couple more for luck
4. Brush the blossoms with the lustre dust
5. Gently dab the blossoms with the edible glue being careful not to disturb the lustre and immediately dip another paintbrush into the edible glitter and carefully touch it on top

Thats is - you're done! Pop the blossoms on the swirls.

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Blossoming Caramel Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes

When I was making these, I was thinking that they would be another glamorous brownie, but, I am not really sure whether a cupcake brownie can qualify as a glamorous brownie. They are quite glamorous though, aren't they?



























These are easy to make, hardly need any specialist equipment and they taste really delicious too. I made my chocolate brownie cupcakes using the Hummingbird Bakery traditional brownie recipe, but, you can use any recipe you like from scratch or from a box. When the batter is mixed, fill cupcake cases about two thirds full, just as you would for a regular cupcake and bake. You will need to bake for about 10 minutes less than your recipe states. Remember that brownies are cooked when they are still a bit undercooked in the middle!

When the brownies come out of the oven, they will have beautifully risen domed tops and your house will be filled with the delicious smell of chocolate. Don't let your heat sink as the brownes sink a little in the centre. This is what gives them their lovely fudgy texture and when they are decorated you won't notice

This is all you need to decorate them.

1. A little chocolate sugar paste (fondant)












2. A teeny tiny blossom cutter plunger












3. A star shaped nozzle. This is a Wilton 2D
4. A batch of caramel butter cream (recipe follows)

Making the teeny-tiny chocolate blossoms

If you can, make your teeny-tiny chocolate blossoms the day before you are going to use them. It doesn't really matter, giving them a chance to dry out a bit means they keep their shape better when you use them. You need 7 blossoms per cupcake brownie, this recipe gave me 12 cupcake brownies, so that was 84 blossoms! Always make a few more for luck.

1. Roll out a small amount of chocolate sugar past thinly
2. Cut out the blossoms using the cutter.
3. Lift the cutter with a bit of a sideways flick - you should have your newly cut blossom inside.
4. Shape the blossom by pressing down the plunger gently onto a foam sugar craft pad if you have one.
(I usually just press my forefinger and middle finger together and plunge the blossom gently between the two. Place the blossoms somewhere to dry.)

Caramel Buttercream

Buttercream is one of those really flexible recipes that you can't really go too far wrong with. The traditional English recipes vary from between equal amounts of butter and icing (powdered / confectioners) sugar to twice the amount of icing sugar to butter.


For this caramel buttercream I used equal amounts:

250g / 8oz / 2 sticks butter (softened)
250g / 8oz / 1 cup icing / powdered / confectioners sugar
Tin or jar of caramel (at least 200g / 6oz)

The tin of caramel I had weighed a little under 400g / 12oz. You actually only need about 200g (6 oz) to get a good caramel flavour, I didn't have any use for the rest of the can, so I just tipped it all in. For buttercream you need to use really soft butter. Leave the butter at room temperature for a couple of hours to soften up, or give it 10 seconds on low in the microwave.


Method

Put the butter into your mixer and beat really well (or use a hand mixer). You need it to be really smooth. Star nozzles have a narrow centre so any lumps of butter will get stuck. When the butter is soft and smooth add about half the icing sugar and beat until really well incorporated, then add the the rest of the icing sugar ad beat until the butter cream is looking lovely and soft and fluffy. Finally add the caramel and beat until just incorporated.

Decorating

Put your piping nozzle into a piping bag and fill the bag with the caramel buttercream. Pipe a couple of test flowers. If the flowers don't hold their shape, pop the piping bag in the fridge for 10 minutes or so to firm up a little.

Start by piping a flower in the middle.

Hold the piping bag upright and pipe slowly, then pause and lift slowly.

Pipe six flowers around the edge

Pipe a final flower on top of the one in the centre

Then carefully place a teeny-tiny blossom onto each flower



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