Our gumpaste cherry blossom tutorial this week is the beautiful double flowering cherry. Cherry blossoms also come in single blossom varieties (which you’ll also learn to create) but the double blossom has an extra layer of fluffy pink prettiness which we couldn’t resist.
Cherry blossoms come in a variety of colors – candy pink, shell pink, cream and white. We’ve chosen the shell pink variety for this tutorial.
The cherry tree is unusual in that the flowers appear before the leaves in spring for many varieties but there are also varieties in which the leaves and flowers appear together. Given the popularity of greenery and foliage in cake decorating at the moment, this is the variety we’ve chosen. We’ve even deviated from nature a little using only very small leaves so as not to overpower the blossoms and tinting the edges of the leaves with a little plum color to accentuate the shell pink flowers. Who says you can’t improve on nature!
Bear in mind too that your choice of stamen color can influence the finished result – different varieties of cherry blossoms feature plum, green, yellow, white or cream stamen. Take a look at our previous feature on Cherry Blossom Cakes here for colorways inspiration.
Gumpaste Cherry Blossom Tutorial: Materials
- stamen (small cream, white or yellow tipped)
- 28 gauge green wires cut into quarters (white will suffice if you don’t have green to hand – they can be dusted green at the end)
- green floristry tape
- beige or brown floristry tape
- 4 x 18-gauge wires
- wire cutters
- needle-nosed pliers or sugarcraft tweezers
- cherry blossom cutter or primrose cutter (or a generic 1-inch blossom cutter plus a rose petal cutter to make the shape as shown below)
- foam pad
- ball tool or bone tool
- petal veiner or veining stick
- veining board (optional)
- pink gumpaste (or cream or white)
- green gumpaste (leaf green)
- small calyx cutter or star cutter (optional) – 3/4 inch
- leaf green dust color, plus plum/burgundy
- flat edged paintbrush plus a round paintbrush
- edible glue
- stryo cake dummy in which to stick wired blossoms while drying
- small rose leaf cutter (1-inch)
- kettle or saucepan of water to steam finished flowers
Gumpaste Cherry Blossom Tutorial: Method
- Start by taking three stamen from your bunch and cut in half. Tape a bunch of three halves to a 28-gauge wire as shown.
- Splay the stamen outwards a little so they’re not bunched together too tightly.
- To make the blossoms, start by making a “Mexican hat” shape using the hole in your Mexican pad or veining board or by hand-moulding the shape according to the directions here: Mexican hat flower tutorial.
- Next place your blossom cutter over the Mexican hat shape and cut out.
- Place the blossom on a foam pad and go around the edges with a small ball tool or bone tool to soften the edges.
- Use one half of a blossom veiner to impress veining (don’t press the two sides together or your Mexican hat will be squashed!). If you are making a single cherry blossom you don’t need to make the next petal layer.
- To continue with the double cherry blossom, roll out some gumpaste thinly and cut out another blossom shape – this time without the Mexican hat.
- Soften the edges with a ball tool, then place the blossom in a veiner or use a veining stick to imprint petal veining.
- To assemble the blossom, take a stamen center you made earlier and brush some edible glue around the top of the tape. Then thread the stamen down through the center of “flat” blossom stopping at the point where the tape is just underneath the blossom and isn’t showing through. Next, brush some glue in the center of the Mexican hat blossom and thread the stamen down through until the first blossom rests on top of the Mexican hat blossom. Pinch the stem of the Mexican hat to ensure it adheres well to the wire. Your blossom should look like this (minus the green calyx) when assembled.
- Note: if you don’t have a specific cherry blossom cutter or primrose cutter like the one we’re using above, you can use a regular one-inch blossom cutter, then use a small rose petal cutter to cut out little knicks from the each petal as shown below. Then you can snip into the sides of each petal to deepen the separation between the petals.
- To make the calyx (which is optional – I chose not to add calyxes to my finished blossoms but the choice is yours), roll out some pale leaf green gumpaste and cut out a calyx shape.
- Soften the edges of the calyx on a foam pad using a small ball tool or bone tool.
- Next, pinch the edges of the calyx together as below.
- Brush some edible glue on the center of the calyx then thread the stemmed blossom down through the center. Stick the blossom in a styro cake dummy to dry.
- To make the cherry blossom buds, start by making a closed hook in a 28-gauge wire using a needle-nosed pliers or sugarcraft tweezers.
- Then take a pea-sized ball of pink paste, dip the hooked wire into edible glue and wipe off the excess. Thread the ball of paste onto the wire and pinch at the base to secure to the wire. Take a knife and mark four segments on the ball of paste. You can make a calyx for the bud if you wish as per the instructions above.
- To make the leaves (which are again optional), start by greasing your veining board. (If you prefer not to use a veining board, you can follow this method here on how to make gumpaste leaves.)
- Roll out a sausage of green gumpaste over the veins on the board.
- Remove the paste from the board and flip over to reveal the veined side. Place your rose leaf cutter over the veining and cut out leaf shapes.
- Gently soften the edges of the leaves with a small ball tool being careful not to erase the serrated leaf edge.
- Dip an 18-guage wire in edible glue, wipe of the excess then insert into the vein on each leaf about one third of the way. Pinch at the base of the leaf to ensure it adheres to the wire.
- Place the leaf in a leaf veiner and impress veining.
- Leave to dry on “bumpy” foam to give a natural curved shape.
- Optional coloring: if you want to cherry blossoms to really pop then you can add a little color highlight here and there to achieve this. For the blossoms we added a delicate shade of “carnation pink” along the edge of the petals with a flat-edged brush.
- Switching to a round brush, apply some of the pink to the center of the flower.
- Moving onto the leaves and a flat-edged brush, apply a little plum/burgundy dust along the edge of the leaf. This compliments the pink blossoms beautifully.
- As for the buds, you can dust the top of these with a slightly deeper pink. In nature the colour of the buds will always be more intense because the petals are so tightly wound. If you haven’t made a calyx for the bud, you can simply apply green dust on the underside of the bud at this point.
- Gently steam the leaves, buds and blossoms to set the dust color.
- To make the branch to which you’ll be attaching the blossoms, first take four 18-gauge wire (or 5 x 20-gauge) and tape together with beige or brown floral tape. Overwrap certain sections to create “knots” on the branch as cherry trees have quite knobbly branches. (See our Gumpaste Ilex Berries & Branch Tutorial on how to do this.)
- Then bend the branch at various points to give it a more natural shape.
- Finally, take a scissors or wire cutters and use it to texture and mark “rucking” all along the branch for added authenticity.
- Next, tape groups of blossoms, buds and leaves together to form clusters e.g. two blossoms, two buds and a leaf could make up one cluster, or three blossoms and two leaves, etc. Tape the elements of the cluster at varying heights as shown below.
- To begin assembling the branch, first tape a single bud to the end of the branch.
- Then snugly line up your first cluster to the branch and tape in place. Leave a little bit of exposed branch before moving on to taping your next cluster to the branch.
- Continue taping floral clusters to the branch, some off to the left, some off to the right.
- Finally, dust any white stems green and swipe through the steam of a kettle to set the color.
