Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Cake Tuesday: poppycake.

Not surprisingly, the price of a cake is affected by the amount of work that goes into it. But this can seem sort of vague, so I thought it might be fun to share exactly what goes into work beyond a basic buttercream finish.

This week we'll look at sugar flowers - specifically, California poppies:

Sometimes clients want all sugar work; sometimes they'd prefer natural flowers, but certain flowers are just too delicate to hold up and are therefore necessary to recreate in sugar (like California poppies).

Creating a single poppy takes around ten individual steps. First, wrap wire stems with tiny sugar stamens and color them a yellowish orange with edible gel.

Then take a lump of gumpaste and mix in a vibrant orange. You have to wear gloves to keep your hands from getting dyed - even though the gels are edible they're very strong and don't wash off easily.

Keep the gumpaste wrapped in plastic because it dries very quickly. Next, roll it out paper thin with a rolling pin or pasta maker, and cut out circles that are around the same size as the petal you want to recreate.

Again, you have to work really quickly so don't cut out too many petals at once. When you have enough for three or four flowers, take a pizza cutter or exact-o knife and cut part of each circle into a V to make the base of the petal.

Once all these are cut, take each petal and press it into a double-sided petal mold. They make these in various sizes with varying patterns - this rose petaler is pretty handy for lots of different flowers.

It looks pretty good, but if you look back up at the poppy image, the fluting at the edges of the petals is a little mor pronounced than this. So I take a small paint brush and press it along the edge of each petal.

Better. Now you want to dampen the V of one petal, and wrap it around one stem. The water will help it stick to itself, but don't use too much, or you'll have a soggy mess.

All the powdered sugar you see is to keep everything from getting sticky. You can brush it all off when you're finished. First, add three more petals to your flower.

Like so. Now the tricky part is to find somewhere for it to dry that will hold its shape. And then make your next flower. Sort of a lot of work, but the end result is worth it, I think. And you can see why we have to charge a little more for sugar work. Here's the finished cake - beautiful fresh flowers, with these delicate poppies mixed in.

The dark ollalieberries were a great foil for the bright flowers, and the rustic barn, hung with elegant chandeliers, provided the perfect setting.