It’s my second day of attempting roses, and I’m feeling the pressure. I thought I could do it. After all,the instructions are laid out in front of me in a beautiful photographic sequence, I’ve taken a course where we spent some time learning how they’re made and we even learned several different ways of building them. For the roses I make though, somehow, something always looks off.The center of my rose looks wonky, or just doesn’t look like it should, the petals are sometime too thick, too thin, or just don’t look right. I need 50 of them for Saturday, and it’s already Thursday night. Gulp.
I’ve tried with gumpaste, modelling chocolate, marzipan and fondant (not all together), have tried using a 5-petal cutter, individual petal cutters and just small balls of gumpaste flattened out on one side and also have tried using a rosebud base and tried just rolling the pieces without a center. I’ve even tried studying real roses, silk roses, and photos of other beautiful sugar roses, but (to my chagrin), I still haven’t managed to make my sugar roses as pretty as I’d like them to be.
If you’ve experienced something similar, I do have something to share… I have discovered this – there is a way to quickly “fix” this problem.
The problem where you’ve got an order (usually a family or friend “order” for me), due in a few days, you’re not having success with how you’d like your roses to look and/or you just don’t have time to make 50 (or 150), flowers within a certain time frame. Personally, the issue arises with me because I just don’t have enough practice making sugar roses. It may be that others catch on to it quicker than I do (most likely!), but either way, it’s taking me longer to get my roses to a level I’d like to be at, and the practice time needed is usually spent on decorating cookies and blogging about them. Although, even if I was blessed with a natural sugar-rose-making-talent, I’m not sure I’d have enough time to make 150 (or more), of them if it was required of me, unless I had a lot of time to prepare in advance.
Enter the untold sugar flower secret of (perhaps) many, in any case it’s one of mine. My sugar flower secret is… Petra International. The name may not give it away, but it is/was a discovery for me that has saved my katoosh in more than one situation. Petra International is a store in Toronto which specializes in selling beautiful, gumpaste flowers in various shapes, colours and sizes. They’re gorgeous, they’re finished, and they solve my problem of needing lots of sugar roses (which are pretty), in a short amount of time! Petra International has just joined Facebook, if you’d like to follow them to see all they’re new flower releases.
If I get the chance, I make the trip to their store to pick out the flowers I need, but, if time doesn’t permit (and for you, if you live too far away), they do ship, and have all their flower photos online for you to peruse. And if they don’t have let’s say, the roses in the color you need, no problem, just buy the white ones and dust them with luster dust, like I did for these pink ones:
Now I have to share, I do feel like I’m ‘cheating’, when I use these, so I let know whomever I share them with, that I haven’t made them, but if you run a bakery or business which simply can’t produce sugar flowers fast enough, or if you’re on the road to learning how to make prettier roses (like me), and need a few in a pinch, it’s such a perfect solution!I do prefer to make everything myself, however, sometimes life just doesn’t allow enough time (and as mentioned, I’m still working on perfecting my roses), so if you don’t have the time to make or learn how to make them, there are options.
For these polka dot, pastel-lined, rose cupcakes, my inspiration came from a combination of browsing Pinterestand seeing thesepretty dishesfrom Royal Dalton, and these sweetpaper baking cupsfrom The TomKat Studio’s shop.
If you’d like to make them, you’ll need a cupcake recipe of your choice (here are a few if you’d like some ideas), and a buttercream icing of your choice as well. I like a lighter look to match the dishes and the soft pastel roses, but you can color your icing to suit your party’s theme. I’m sharing the buttercream frosting recipe I used for these ones with you, below.
Besides the tools you’ll need to make these, below is my video on making an icing swirl, if you’d like to watch my video on frosting a cupake.
{Video} Making a Cupcake Icing Swirl:
Click here for a video on how to frost the cupcake.
How to Make the Cupcakes
Things You’ll Need:
- Piping Tip #826
- Piping Bag
- Paper Baking Cups
- Gumpaste Roses
- Soft Pink Luster Dust
- Rose Pink Luster Dust
- Soft Paintbrush (never used with paint)
- Painters Palette*optional (never used with paint)
*optional (never used with paint)
Instructions:
1) Bake your cupcakes. While the cupcakes are cooling make your icing and tint it white if you’d like a brighter, whiter look.
2) Insert your cupcakes into the liners and add your icing swirl.
3) Dip your paintbrush into the luster dusts (sitting on a painters palette, if you like), and dust your gumpaste roses if you’d like a brighter, pinker look. I bought my roses either white or a soft pink color, so wanted to deepen the color to better match the dishes.
4) Place your roses into the icing and you’re done!
{Click to print}
Have fun!
xo,
Marian
