This gumpaste snowberries tutorial shows you how to make realistic looking white snowberries for your winter sugarcraft arrangements. They make a beautiful seasonal addition to winter wedding cakes where the color scheme is a classic white or ivory and doesn’t allow for red berries.
Gumpaste Snowberries Tutorial: Materials
- white gumpaste
- 28-gauge white wires cut into sixths
- 18, 20 or 22-gauge wire (whichever you have to hand. Color also doesn’t matter – we’ll be taping over them with brown tape)
- edible glue
- vine green dust color
- brown dust color
- decorator’s alcohol (or lemon juice)
- brown floral tape
- paintbrushes (one flat edged and one fine line)
- edible glaze spray
Gumpaste Snowberries Tutorial: Method
- To make the snowberries you can roll quarter-inch balls of white gumpaste by hand. However, if you need to make several stems of snowberries the fastest method is to use a bead mold which enables you to make multiple berries in a much shorter space of time. But bear in mind you also need to make some very tiny berries and some extra large berries. But the bulk of your berries can be made using your bead mold.
- Dip a 28-guage wire into edible glue, wipe off the excess, then insert into a berry with the tip of the wire ever so slightly peeping through the other side. Pinch the paste at the base of the berry to secure it to the wire. Set aside to dry overnight.
- Dust the smallest berries with a bright green dust from the stem to about 2/3 the way to the top of the berry – we used vine green here. The medium size berries can be dusted just at the base only and the large berries don’t need any dust.
- Steam the small and medium berries to set the green dust color. Set aside to dry.
- Next mix up some brown dust color with a little clear alcohol to make a paint and using a very fine tipped paintbrush, paint a little brown dot at the top of each berry where the wire is just starting to poke through.
- You can also paint the stems of the berries brown at this stage too. You don’t need to paint the full length of the wire – less than an inch will do.
- Spray with the berries with edible glaze to bring up a shine but it make take a few coats to get the berries super-shiny.
- Next, take one of your thicker wires and tape down the length of it with brown floral tape.
- To add the berries, start by taping a cluster of 2 or three small green berries at the top of the stem.
- Leave a little space, then tape in another cluster of small berries, followed by a space and a cluster of medium sized berries. Leave another space, then start taping in some clusters of large white berries.