Sugar Craft Cake Decorations

I like to make my own decorations and sugar flowers for my cakes.  Its quick, simple, looks amazing and is a lot cheaper and funner than buying them off the shelf.

Leaves

I start with some white rolled icing, cut off how much you need, and start to need it to soften it.  Make sure your board is covered with icing sugar to stop it sticking. To start just add a couple of drops of gel colour to the centre of your icing and start to fold it in and need it until there is a uniform colour.  This is the green intended for the leaves.

Roll the icing about 3 or 4mm thick, and use a veined cutter to stamp out the shape of the leaf, i used ivy and rose leaves.

Cut as many as you can from your rolled piece of icing then roll up and need the left over, re roll and cut again, keep going until there isn't enough to make decent cuts just so you make the most of the icing.

I also added extra colour when re rolling my icing so that there was a variation in the colour of  the leaves.

To dry the leaves, put in an air tight box or container and leave for a couple of days.  The heat and humidity of the room will have a huge affect on drying times, the first time I did these they melted, so remember to put the box in a cool dry place.  Lay the leaves out so that they are not touching each other.  I also used the same box for the flowers and layered it, using baking  paper to divide each layer.

Flowers

The flowers start out the same as the leaves, white icing, needed, then colour added and rolled to about 3 or 4 mm.  I used Petunia Cutter and Mould for these flowers.

first use the metal cutter to form the basic shape from your rolled icing.  (I used pink)

Then, using the mould (also called a veiner) place the cut out flower shape on one bottom side, and press the top into the icing.  TIP: make sure the mould has been covered in powder icing to stop the rolled icing sticking to it.

Then open up the mould, and this is what you should have... a nice shaped and veined flower.  Just remove from mould by pulling one corner to loosen.

I also made some two tone flowers by placing the inner colour into the top layer of the mould first in a ball.  

then placing the cut flower on the top, when pushed together the mould will bond the two colours like this:

Small Flowers

As a little extra decoration I also made small flowers using various shapes and sizes of plunge cutters and veiners from this set.  I mixed small amounts of pink, purple, cream, yellow and some white rolled icing.  This time I rolled it a little thinner as there were some very small pieces, very simply you stamp out the shape in the same way we made the leaves.  They were also left to dry with the larger flowers and leaves, but if you prefer any of these sugar craft items can be used soft but may flatten when put on the cake.

I have used these flowers and leaves on many baked items now and even on homemade chocolates and sweets.  They give a professional look to any homemade item, here is just an example of some princess cakes I made for BabyCafe.

And on the petit fours and princess cakes I made for Jennifer's christening.

Updated: I pulled out a low bit of baking paper from the box, which stuck to another bit.... and another bit... and another bit... so this is the disaster I was left with..... not a lot usable in this mess. :(