Technique Tuesday: Making Roses from Gumdrops

Today, I'm going to show you how to make fancy gumdrop flowers to decorate a cake or cupcake with. Certainly, easier than an icing flower, these beauties have an extra sparkle that will add a bit of drama to a plain looking cake.


                                                               (c) Real Simple

 First things first, you will need the following:

• A bag of gum drops. Each flower requires 3 gumdrops, so buy appropriate to your needs.
• Sugar
• Knife
• Optional: rolling pin if you have one. If not, no big deal.

Sprinkle your work surface with a good bit of granulated sugar. Pull out your 3 gumdrops and use your rolling pin or the heel of your hand to smash to the gumdrop into a thin, 1/8" or so flatish disk. If it sticks to your hand or the pin, sprinkle more sugar on the drop.



Hulk Smash!

Next, you need to cut the disks in half, no big deal, don't freak out.

Aww..snap! Cut like a gansta!

Okay, the next part is kind of tricky so pay attention. Take your ugliest cutting and roll it up really tightly on itself. This will make the interior part of the bud. The heat of your hands will start to melt the drops a little, so sugar up as necessary. Pinch the bottom of the bud to secure the roll in place.

Use the remaining half-circles to continually wrap around the interior bud, pinching the bottoms together as you go. Try to overlap the seams so that they aren't all on the same side. It's not a lot of work and you get this really pretty little decoration.

Awwww

Just keep repeating the steps until you get as many as you need. Remember this is a garnish, so you don't have to make 900 of them, just a few for the center. They are very dense, everyone is not going to want to chew on one of these, probably only the kids. You want the cake to be the star, not the flowers.

Right before you are ready to put them on your cake you are going to need to cut the pinchy bit at the bottom off so that it will sit flat on your cake. We are going to chop that off.



Chop off the pinchy bit.

 Then you're ready to decorate with these little guys. Enjoy!