Want to add a lifelike touch of beauty to your cakes? Learn to make gum paste flowers!

This is another installment in my series on cake decorating classes that I've been taking at Cake Creations Dessert Haven in Manoa. Classes are one night a week. We learned to mold nine different flowers (and one grass) in this four-part series on gum paste flowers:


Every night, we learned about three different flowers. On the last night, we only did one flower, but we spent the rest of the time coloring the dried flowers. We used either the airbrush, colored dust (which comes in matte, shiny, or shimmery), or colored dust mixed with liquid so it's like paint.


A different coloring option is to dye the gum paste before you work with it. Or you can roll in some specks of colored gum paste onto an otherwise white section of dough, to get a speckled look.

These flowers are lifelike and a little sturdier than flowers made of fondant. Gum paste is sugar dough mixed with gums, which makes it easy to shape. It's like modeling clay. The sugar enables it to dry hard, but it can be very brittle. It is considered "technically" edible, but I wouldn't advise eating it. It tastes bland. I would more consider it a non-toxic ornament for the cake.


You take a cookie cutter and cut out basic petal shapes. You have to work with the cookie cutter size you have, so if you want a larger petal, you start with the gum paste a little thicker, like 1/8th inch, cut the petal, and then roll it out flatter with a rolling pin. The petals should be thin.

Some flowers, like the plumeria, you just piece together. Some flowers, like the stargazer lily, need wire inserted delicately in each petal, then after it's dry, you piece it together like a puzzle. Some flowers, like the hibiscus, need ruffled edges in the petal.

It looks really simple, but there are little tricks for each flower. You also have to work fast because gum paste hardens and cracks.The teacher, Lani, said she only felt comfortable making the rose a couple years ago. So, great. She is a professional baker. That means I will never get that one.

I had trouble rolling out the paste to a consistent thickness and shape. I had trouble inserting the wire so that it didn't break through the thin petal. I had the most trouble with ruffling the edges with the baller. It would rip.

I totally enjoyed the class, but for my personal hobby, I have decided to buy the molds for the flowers that were already fairly easy for me, that I can practice and get right (hopefully) over time. My favorite is the peony, which to me looks like a gardenia if I leave the stamen out. I also liked the plumeria, the water lily, and the stephanotis.

I thought the class was extremely interesting, and gained- once again - a greater appreciation for the professionals who make it look so good.

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