This quick and easy gumpaste magnolia tutorial makes a spectacularly showy flower to finish a cake, especially a wedding cake, due to its larger size and combination of its pristine white petals and its beautiful and detailed yellow/gold centre.
There are other varieties of magnolia which are just as popular, especially the pink magnolia which has narrower petals.
Gumpaste Magnolia Tutorial: Materials
- 3 x 18-guage wires taped together
- Gumpaste
- Petal dust – yellow and brown
- Magnolia petal cutters (one large, one small)/ or you can find templates via Google if you don’t wish to buy cutters
- 24-guage white wires
- Edible glue
- Ball tool
- Dresden tool
- Foam pad
- Cardboard apple tray from grocery store to use as a petal former
Gumpaste Magnolia Tutorial: How-To
Take an 18-guage wire and cut into three pieces. Then tape the three pieces together with florist’s tape.
Take a piece of gumpaste and roll it into a smooth 1-inch ball between the palm of your hands.
Take your taped wire, dip one end into some edible glue, wipe off the excess, then insert the glued wire into the ball of gumpaste. Pinch around the base of the ball to secure it well to the wire.
Place the ball of gumpaste between the palms of the hands again and gently roll one end so that it forms an egg shape.
Next take a small sugarcraft scissors and snip into the egg-shaped ball of gumpaste to create a textured finish.
Using the thin end of a Dresden tool, tease open some of the “snips” for added texture.
Dust the centre of the magnolia with yellow dust, blended with a tiny bit of brown or a shade of gold if you prefer. (Magnolia centers can also be a beautiful shade of spring green if you prefer that shade.)
Set aside the center to dry overnight.
Moving on to the petals, take a ball of white gumpaste and roll it into a sausage shape.
Place the sausage shape on to your board horizontally and roll outwards from you. You are deliberately leaving one end thick to insert your petal wires, while rolling the other end thinly.
Cut out three small petals with the bottom of the petal cutter at the thick end of the gumpaste, where the wire is going to be inserted.
Take 2 x 24-guage white wires and cut into four pieces each.
Dip one end of white wires into some edible glue. Wipe off the excess and insert the wire into the thick end of the petal about an inch or inch and a half.
Place the wired petal on a foam pad and using your ball tool, run around the edges of the petal to thin out.
Place the petal into one of the cups of an apple tray to dry.
Wire and thin the other two small petals and leave to dry in apple tray also.
Cut out 6 large petals using the sausage method above, wire and thin the edges and leave to dry overnight also.
Once the petals have dried and before you start assembling, a handy tip is to tape the wires with floristry tape. This gives the wires a certain tackiness which prevents the petals from spinning loosely around the center when you are taping the flower together.
To assemble the gumpaste magnolia, take some half-width florist’s tape and holding the first petal at an angle to the magnolia center (you may need to gently bend the petal wire to fit the petal snugly to the center), tape the petal and center together securely.
Repeat this for the other two small petals, spacing them evenly around the center.
For the second row of petals, take the first large petal and tape it underneath the space between two smaller petals in the first row. Continue taping the remainder of the large petals around the flower.
