Prior to pastry school, I had no knowledge of gumpaste flowers. It wasn’t until our chef for this unit, Chef Laura Ragano, began her class demonstration for us that I came to fully understand their construction and appreciate the artistic craftmanship required.

Gumpaste is a labor of love. The work is tedious and time-consuming. Yet, the result is spectacular. As extravagant wedding and specialty cakes continue to increase in popularity, choosing detailed, beautiful gumpaste flowers for one’s cake could be the defining feature that sets it apart from all others.

Here is a just a brief breakdown of the construction for a single gumpaste flower:

Day 1: Make gumpaste. Let sit overnight.

Day 2: Color gumpaste, if desired. Roll out gumpaste and cut out petals. Insert a wire into each petal. Detail the petals with veining, ruffling, or fringing and let dry. Also, create the flower centers.

Day 3: Each petal and center is tied into a base wire with floral tape. The flowers are dusted with color, if desired, and then steamed to set the color.

This can take awhile if you are making more than one flower. For example, a lily flower has 6 petals. That’s 6 petals to roll, cut, and embellish, as well as tie into the base wire and paint.

Despite the work involved in creating these flowers, they are rewarding to make and allow vast creativity to the decorator. The gumpaste flowers we created will be used to decorate our own three-tiered wedding cakes next week. I chose to decorate my cake with a mixture of green, yellow, and white flowers. I made a lime green gumpaste and painted the edges of my roses with a tangerine-pink.

Below are more photos of my gumpaste flowers, as well as some of my fellow classmates’ flowers. At the bottom of the page is the three-tiered fondant cake I created for my gumpaste flower spray.