I Learn to Get Along with Cake

The Gum Paste Cake.  The cake that made me turn the corner.  Gum Paste is another sugar dough that is made with a ton of 10x (powdered sugar), egg whites and tylose ( a drying/hardening agent) with shortening kneaded in.  It is used to make flowers and other decorations.  It can be colored and formed into various shapes and then dries quite hard.  We made gumpaste flowers for about 3 days - roses, daisies, calla lilies, small supporting flowers, buds and leaves.  They take awhile to make, put together, dry and shade with petal dust, so it is a lengthy process.  Making flowers is so much fun.  It can seem tedious, but I really enjoyed it.  This was the first stacked cake we made, so I thought it was a pretty big deal!  I was a bit nervous putting all the dowels in, but it worked out pretty good.

Each tier was layered with buttercream and covered with white fondant.  Here is a photo of my flowers not put together and the partially finished cake.  About 1/3 of the cake was covered with a royal icing Cornelli lace pattern that was edged with these tiny royal icing filigrees.  The disc on top is pastillage and is the base for an abtract pastillage cake topper.  We were able to choose our own color scheme and flower design.  The seams between the tiers and base were covered with royal icing bead work.  This is my flower arrangement put together.

I also covered the remaining 2/3 of the bottom tier with bead and extension work.  Extension work is this series of crazy thin royal icing "strings" stretched between two points.  We made curved pastillage pieces to secure the strings to.  Talk about carpel tunnel.  Very tedious, very fun.  All this detail work is right up my alley.  I was very happy with the finished product, especially because this was the first major cake.  I am glad that I no longer see cake as the enemy and am happy to have a new found passion in my world of pastry.

Coming up:  Sculpted Cake, Speed Drills, Haunted Houses and The Wedding Cake!  I hope I survive it all to bake another day.  Until then, ciao!

-The Queen of Tarts-