How to make a five petal fantasy flower

By
Janice Friedman
89

In this tutorial I want to show you how to make a five petal fantasy flower. The flower is inspired by a pink flower broche that I have. You are welcome to change the color for the flower, so that it match your color scheme.

Remember that the flower stamens are inedible, so you need to remove the flower before cutting the cake.

This is what I use:
Drinking glass
Foil
Foam pad
Ball tool
Rolling pin
Cornstarch
Five petal cutters in following sizes: 35mm, 80mm, 110mm
(Easy rose cutters 80mm + 110mm from JEM) (35mm/1 1/4″ any five petal cutter can be used)
Gum paste
Pink food gel color (optional)
Pearl & pink luster dust (optional)
15-20 white flower stamens (small round headed)
White non-parelis
Tylo glue
Small firm brush for the tylo glue
Small soft brush for the luster dust
Pair of tweezers
pair of scissors
Small pieces of foam
Paper towel
Flower former:
Start by covering the glass with double layers of foil, like shown on the photo. Dust it with a little cornstarch, so that the flower wont stick to the foil.

Step 1:
Color some of the gum paste pink with the food gel color and roll out the gum paste thinly. Cut out the first layer of the flower, using the large five petal cutter (110mm). Place the flower on the foam pad and thin the edges of the flower with the ball tool. Dust the tin foil with a littel cornstarch before placing the large flower on the tin foil “cup”. Shape the petals with your fingers and place small pieces of foam to keep them in place.

Step 2:
Take some white gum paste, again roll it out thinly and this time use the medium five petal cutter (80mm). Cut out the second layer for the flower, and place it on the foam pad. Thin the edges of the flower with the ball tool. Place the cut out flower on a piece of paper towel and brush the white flower, with white luster dust.

Step 3:
Brush a thin layer of tylo glue in the middle of the pink flower.

Step 4:
Place the white flower on top of the pink flower. Again shape the petals with your fingers and place small pieces of foam, to keep the petals in place while drying.

Step 5:
Roll out some pink gum paste thinly, and cut out the last petal for the fantasy flower with the small petal cutter (35mm). Thin the edges with the ball tool and glue it in the middle of the white flower with tylo glue. You can use the end of a paint brush to lift up the small petals. I dont use any foam pieces to keep the small petals in place here.

Step 6:
Take some white gum paste, make a small ball, that match the center of the flower and flatten it slightly. Brush the top of the ball with tylo glue and dip it into the white non-parelis. Secure the ball with tylo glue in the middle of the pink flower. Let the flower dry for 1 hour before you continue.

Step 7:
Take some small round headed white flower stamens and cut them a little shorter. Push in the flower stamens all the way around the edge of center with a pair of tweezers. Finish the flower by adding a little pink luster dust in the the center. Let the flower dry until firm, about 1-3 days. Remember to remove the small pieces of foam, when the flower is dry.

Tip!
You can also make smaller or larger flowers by using various sizes of five petal cutters, than the ones used for this tutorial.

Happy Caking!

Louise

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89 COMMENTS

  2. Thank you for sharing the beautiful tutorial! Can you tell me, please, what type of pan you used to obtain the shape of the mini cake?

  3. These are lovely. If I wanted to make these to cascade down the side of a cake how would I stick them on? With edible glue or wires? If wires, how would I attach the wire? Thanks in advance

  6. Amazing!!! Cannt find words for the effort and minute detail provided in the tutorial! Brilliant! Each and every tutorial is so simple and the photos indeed are great help! thanks a million!

  7. Louise, your tutorial is fantastic! I have a wedding cake I’m doing in September and the bride is requesting a fantasy flower with 4 graduated sized flowers in 4 shades of purple. I will be using this tutorial to create her flower.

  8. This is beautiful, and very helpful. I do have a question regarding flowers that are on wire that is wraped. Can they be put into the cake or must I use a flower pick? Thank you for your time.

  9. what a great tutorial. I don’t need to pay hundreds of dollars to do day courses. your tutorials are very educational. thank you for sharing ! πŸ™‚

    • Melanie: You make the whole flower. Add the small pieces of foam in between the petals and then let it dry for 2-3 days. Depending on how dry you want the flower to be. Remember that gum paste dries faster than regular fondant.

  13. You should be able to just pick it up with your hands, since it should be nice and dry. You can affix it to the cake with a little royal icing or edible glue.

  19. thank you so much for all the advices and tips, they are so valuable and this is the best website ever
    congratulations and i hope you can share more of your toturials,

  25. Llsa: You could use patty tins/muffin tins? I like that there are many ways to make a flower former.

    Rani: I have not made a tutorial on how to decorate a cake with icing (yet). There are lots of that on Youtube.

  26. Hi Louise, I thought i had seen a post somewhere on how to actually decorate the cake with icing first..is there one on the site? I would like to try these today and need to know what i need and how to do.. GREAT WORK!! Thanks so much!

  27. Hi Louise!
    Love your little fantasy flower! Have you ever thought of using a patty tin instead of the cup? It would save you a lot of work!

  35. Absolutely Stunning!

    Sometimes the most simplest of designs are the most attractive and eye catching.. Thanks for the great tutorial too, I’m printing this one out! πŸ™‚

  36. This is a very delicate art work and the inspiration for some wedding cupcakes decorations i will be trying. Thank you for sharing with us!

  37. Love this fantasy flower. Just wondering what size stamens did you use. I’m going to make an anemone and don’t know which size to buy. Thanks!

  40. Beautiful tutorial!! Can you tell me what size cutter you used? They look to be fairly large flowers? I’d love to make them for a cake in February. Thanks.

  43. Thanks Louise your work as ever is wonderful, something for us less gifted cakers to aspire to. Actually, I think that this one is within my comfort zone. Just one thing though I’ve been grappling with how to make edible stamens. While we know to remove them before eating the cake, that flower might seem mighty attractive to a child, who might try and grab it when no ones looking.

    Though I haven’t tried it yet, but I think the following may work. Orchard makes a product called unbreakable gel which is edible. You can use a sugarcraft gun to extrude it into legnths. Lindy Smith used it for the whiskers for her tiger cake. I’ve been dying to try it, but I haven’t found anybody carrying it here in Australia.

  51. So glad that you all like the flower tutorial πŸ™‚

    Becky: The best way to store flowers ahead of time is simply in either a cardboard box or an airthight box but the flowers needs to be all dry if you place it in the airthight box because they can get soft and lose their shape. When packed then just place them out of direct sunlight in a pantry.

    If the flowers are to be placed on buttercream or other types of “wet” frosting, they can go a little soft again. My flowers also get soft when placed on fondant cakes because I store those in the refrigerator. Not many here eat the decorations, I think its only the kids if they can get away with it.

    I always have stock of flowers and they are quite dry and hard.

    Andreaetta: Good luck with them πŸ™‚

    Liz: I put my asnwer here for others to read too. I use a danish brand of rolled fondant. But I have for a long time used Bakels/Pettince but it gave me so much trouble over the last year that I now use the danish brand. For gumpaste I simply just mix the rolled fondant with tylo powder. Sometimes only with tylo and other times with a little egg white, crisco and tylo. It depend on what I am making. Mix 500gr fondant with 1-2 tsp of tylo. Depending on what you are making you may need to add a little more tylo.

  55. thanx alot for sharing this tutorial especially the idea of covering the glass with foil to make former… this is a great one…
    Really u have a great site that i learnt me much

  56. Can you email me to let me know the type of gumpaste and fondant you use?
    Each example you have is so beautiful and soft looking.
    Thank you so much for taking the time to teach us.

  59. Happy New year Louise! What a stupendous New Year’s gift! I simply loved it! I hope I could have the time to make something so pretty! Thanks! <3

  62. Beautiful, you made it to look so simple in your tutorial, it is great. Thanks for sharing and for you and everybody have a great 2010.

  66. Oh, this is just what I am looking for. I want 2010 to be a year of improving my baking and decorating techniques – I am quite excited about doing this flower.

  69. When I saw this tutorial, I was awed. Thankyou so much for your time and devotion to such a wonderful craft. I love this flower.

  74. Louise – thank you for sharing your expertise. I love this flower – looks simple to make but quite exquisite in appearance. Thanks a ton and Happy New Year!

  79. Hi Louise!

    You gave great step by step information and photos to make a five petal fantasy flower.

    I’m going to make this on Saturday and I’ll let you know how it turns out.

    Have a great 2010!

    Andreaetta

  80. I LOVE this tutorial, as well as all your other ones too. I must order the cutters and give this a try. Thank You soooo much!!!

  82. Oooh thank you so much for another fabulous tutorial! I really do love your tutorials -please do more whenever you get a chance!

  85. Happy New Year to you, Louise! As always, your work is flawless.
    If I wanted to make a bunch of flowers and save them, what is the best way of preserving them? In the freezer? A pantry at room temperature? How long will they stay ‘edible’?
    Thank you for all of your tutorials, advice and support through the year. We are all better decorators because of you πŸ™‚

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