Gumpaste Vs. Sugarpaste

As you might know I teach cake decorating classes in one of the leading cooking schools in Israel. 

In my basic course the second meeting involves sculpting a woman. 

I׳ve been teaching this course for quite some time and I always use Gumpaste for sculpting, just as I do for my own cake figures and decorations.

 However, no matter how much I stress the superiority of Gumpaste over Sugarpaste, for sculpting, designing and delicate intricate work, I always get the same question from my students, can't I use Sugarpaste in another method or form?

Well for starters you can use whatever you want, but if you want a good looking figure, a delicate flower or intricate lace pieces, I truly recommend using Gumpaste. 

If you are not familiar with the difference between the two pastes, here is my explanation: 

I compare Sugarpaste to a farmer:  he works long and hard, he does rough tasks, that must be done properly but without too much attention to delicacy or design. 

Gumpaste is similar to a royal family member. They are very delicate, they wear lace and silks and diamonds. They are all about beauty and design. They want perfect accuracy and decorations. 

If you keep that in mind you can understand the difference between the two.

One of my wedding cakes,
the decor and couple are made of
gumpaste

Sugarpaste for cake covering and Gumpaste for decor and sculpting.

That is all good and dandy, but I do have one exception I tell my students: What if you want to sculpt or create sugar flowers, you don't have Gumpaste and you have no desire to go to the store, or you can't go because your snowed in or just too tired?

We'll this consists as an emergency in my book :) 

In this case you can add some Gum tragacanth, Taylose, or CMC. These are powders used to stiffen your paste while adding a stretch quality to it. 

Add 1-2 tea spoons of any one of these powders to your Sugarpaste , knead well and let sit for 30 minutes to 1 hour, prior to using.

The paste will be stiffer than regular Sugarpaste, thus fitting for basic design work. 

But, this paste will never have the same qualities Gumpaste has. 

That is why I recommend having Gumpaste or making your own. 

Here is A very good Gumpaste recipe I use for my sugar flowers:

Alan Dunn's Gumpaste recipe

5 tsp cold water,
2 tsp powdered gelatine,
18 oz confectioners' sugar (sifted)
3 tsp gum tragacanth
2 tsp liquid glucose,
3 tsp white vegetable fat plus an extra tsp to be added later
1 large fresh egg white 

Mix the water and gelatine in a small bowl and leave to stand for 30mins. Sift the icing sugar and gum tragacanth together into the bowl of your heavy duty mixer. 
Place the gelatine/water mix over a pan of hot water and stir till the gelatine has dissolved. 
Add the glucose and vegetable fat to the gelatine and water mixture and keep heating until everything has dissolved. Add this mixture to the icing sugar and egg white and start beating in the lowest speed then slowly turn the speed up to high till the paste is stringy and white. 
Take the paste from the bowl and knead together. Cover using the extra tsp of vegetable fat to stop it crusting and place in a plastic bag inside an airtight container. 
Let the paste rest for 12 hrs before using.
Keep in the fridge.

I'd love to see your cake designs!
if you send me good qulity photos i'll portray it in the blog!

Till next time, cake away!'

Sharon

Summer Times...

Hey there, I really really wanted to publish a post on a celebrity wedding cake I did last week, but summer flu had me and I was spending my time not thinking about any type of food...

So I will tell you all about it in the next few days, but right now here is my latest creation- a cute bucket and rake cake, made yesterday for his kindergarten end of the year party.

I haven't really told the teacher what I do for a living, thus elegently avoiding special requests all throught the year...even his birthday cake was very simple, I only used edible paper -pooh drawing, because the next day he had a cute birthday cake for his party at home.

Well, the teacher, oblivient to my primary love (yaha, after my hubby and kids of course..) asked us to bring to the party a vegtable platter and 3 soft drink bottles
I love vegetables and was quite content with the request, but I didn't count on my baby boy (3.5 yrs) expectations-
"mommy, I want you to make a cake for the party!".
"Honey, I can't your teacher asked for vegetables and drinks!"
"I want a cake!!!!" ( he wasn't screaming, he's a very sweet kid he hardly raises his voice)
"well, let me see if that's possible"
"If I can make a cake, what shall it be?"
"I want a sand bucket and a spoon, with lots of sand and seashells!"

Well, he knows what he wants, you have to give him that..
I arranged a switch with one of the moms and peace returned to our home.

So, how was this cake created?
Since I started working on the cake around noon, I didn't have the time to create a tutorial, but I will walk you through the steps:

The sand is actually edible sand and very easy to make.
The cake is created from 4 layers of cake about 7" / 18 cm diameter.

I added ganache between the layers and on the top.

Then I placed on top of the cake a circle I cut from paper, it was 5" / 13cm diameter. It was my guide to cut the top 2 levels diagonally, all around, to create a sand bucket look.
once it looked like an upside down bucket I ganached the sides of all 4 layers.

I then rolled out pink sugarpaste and coverd the cake.
When covering a cake as tall as this, and especially when the cake is wider at the bottom, you will encounter some difficulty with access sugarpaste.
There are a few ways to manage this-
1. cut a slit in the paste once it is placed on the cake and set aside the access sugarpaste.
2. keep on opening the paste when it wrinkles and smooth it out as much as possible.
The second option was what I did. (it leaves less of an impression on the final cake.

I let the cake set for about 20 minutes and then flipped it over with a wide pizza spatula, directly on to the board, on a dab of royal icing. The cake was placed at its final location.
I then added cmc to some of the pink sugarpaste and let it stand for 15minutes. Then I rolled it out and cut a long strip , which I attached to the side of the bucket, at the top.
I paced the strip about 1/4" / 1cm higher from the cake sides, thus creating a border, where I could later add the edible sand and avoid any spillage.

Then I created the sand bucket handle from a white strip of gumpaste I attached with royal icing to the cake and added two toothpicks, one on each side. on top of each toothpick I placed a piece of pink sugarpaste.

While waiting for the cakes to bake, I created the spoon and the rake:
the spoon was really easy because it is just a handle with a hole at the end. I rolled out green sugarpaste with cmc and created a long skinny sausage. I then inserted a skewer almost all the way to top. For my step before last I flattened the sugarpaste using a cake smoother.
I used a small cutter to cut out a hole at the end of the handle and placed it on baking paper to dry.

For the rake I created the handle just like I did for the spoon. The more difficult part was the teeth. So I took a photo from the web of a real plastic rake that seemed as a good model and followed the look, first I cut it out flat, to create a similar look, and then I used a tool created for clay work. I find that you can never have too many types of tools while decorating cakes. When I see a tool that seems it will come in handy one day, I will usually buy it.  Sure, I have my share of unused tools, but once in a while I'm grateful, I have the unique tools that will help me out in that tight spot.

Keeping my  sugarpaste flat, I used the clay tool to create the teeth.
Then I bended them, stuck in each tooth a short flower wire, used a skewer to create a canal for the skewer to be added later, and let it dry against a flat surface, just to make sure the teeth are all aligned.
Final step using some royal icing as glue, I attached the rake body to the handle and let dry for a few hours.

The rake actually worked!

I created the seashells using 2 different chocolate molds. Although the shells were also sugarpaste with cmc.

Assembling the cake:
I spread edible sand on the board and in the sand bucket. Then I placed the spoon handle and the rake, actually using it to create markings in the sand!
Finally I added the seashells and was rather happy of the outcome. (my son was thrilled!|)
But it felt like something was missing...

A MESSAGE IN THE SAND!!!

It says in hebrew, have a nice vacation!

Have a great summer everyone!

Til next time,
Cake away
Sharon

White and lilach dreams

In many weddings, I take photos of the garden, the tables, even the brides maids flower bouqet.
I've never posted them before, because I'm no expert photographer. (I've been planning on going to a photography course, forever! )

But at this wedding (sunday), the light was just right, the setting was beautiful, and even I with my poor photography skills got it right...

Some tables had these magnificent flower bouqets

The bridesmaids bouqets and wreaths await

Closeup on one bridesmaid bouqet

Of course it all started with a wedding cake, that is why you're hearing about it in the first place...

The bride, iris, is training to be a doctor. She was so busy, she sent her mom to choose the cake.
We really had to work out some way to compromise between what the bride wanted and what her mom wanted. It wasn't easy and took some negotiating skills... But we did find a cake design that worked for everyone.

The chosen wedding cake was white, elegent, classy, topped with a bouqet of white and lilach gumpaste Lisianthus flowers.

Lisianthus sugar flowers topping the wedding cake

The Lisianthus flowers have a special place in my heart, because they were used in the flower arrangments at my wedding!

They are great flowers, they are not too difficult to recreat, and they work well in a bouqet consisting only Lisianthus or several very different flowers.

I'm actually working on a tutorial on how to create them.

One other thing, if you haven't joined my mailing list yet, I urge you to so. I almost finished writing a series of CakeTips with a lot of real important information and knowledge for cake decorators.

I'm also working on a few surprises, one of them at least is a real revolution in cake decorating.
So stay tuned...

Cake away, until next time!
Sharon