Cake flowers and leaves

I am very excited this morning.
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Last night, instead of getting up to organizing (I put it off because I took the bus to work on Thursday, thus 80% of the boxes are at my office), I folded 1 basket of red petals for lanterns AND... drumroll... made my first batch of cake flowers!

It should be noted that my darn camera (we're hopefully getting a new one soon) flash totally heightened the yellow and made it look very bright. That said, I will be diluting the yellow in the future with water so it sort of melts into the white, rather than you being able to see brush strokes.

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Here's what the live ones look like:

I've never used fondant before, and that's what they're made out of. I have a silicon mold (the flower) and a plastic mold (the leaf). I've been reading up on working with fondant and molds, and I finally felt ready last night. QUITE FUN!

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The plastic mold was more difficult to use than the silicon mold. I eventually had to spray then wipe it to get the fondant to mold in and then be able to come back out. The silicon was much easier.

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Fondant is great because after it comes out of the mold, you can easily tweak it about, take off petals, make a petal flipped, roll a leaf, etc etc. And, for the most part, it stays in the position you tweak it to (unless gravity is really NOT on its side).

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Changes in future rounds... I think I will add a pointed backing to the flower (the real ones do anyway-- see below to see stems), which will give me more of a base to put a toothpick in. I think I will dry the flowers therefore on a cookie rack, that way I can stick the toothpicks in and have them danglign below and the petals of the flowers won't get mussed up. I think I will paint the flowers and leaves after they dry, but I have to experiment to ensure that the fondant will still take the paint after it is dried (for paint, by the way, I'm using food coloring... no wackiness in real paints, don't worry).

With all these changes, I think I will have a final product that is ready-to-go onto the cake and won't need tweaking. I will be able to not fret about it! The toothpicks on the flowers (and I think I'm goign to put a toothpick on the bottom of each leaf-- at one end) will ensure that I can work them into a vertical surface. I will have icing, but if it's warm, the icing won't always hold much weight on a vertical surface. Icing + toothpick will work. And honestly, if it doesn't, at this point there's not much else I'm willing to prepare for to make this work. It either does or doesn't, and if I can't use vertical surfaces, then, well, we won't! It will still look pretty.

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The green was still drying, so I couldn't take pictures, but I laid a few vanilla beans next to the leaves and flowers and moved them closer together. Oh my gosh! So pretty. The vanilla beans just hit the plumeria spot-on. They really look like branches!!! I mean, of course they aren't, but still. And oh gosh, they smell SOOO good. Right now I have the plate in my cabinet with two vanilla beans and the flowers, and whenever I open the cabinet door, this fresh vanilla sent comes out. Ahhhh....

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99 days left.