{"id":21358,"date":"2020-02-10T20:02:45","date_gmt":"2020-02-10T20:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cake-geek.com\/?p=21358"},"modified":"2023-07-12T12:46:40","modified_gmt":"2023-07-12T12:46:40","slug":"gumpaste-open-peony-tutorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cake-geek.com\/index.php\/gumpaste-open-peony-tutorial\/","title":{"rendered":"Gumpaste Open Peony Tutorial"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

\"Gumpaste<\/p>\r\n

This gumpaste open peony tutorial shows you how to make an impressive focal flower for a wedding cake or special occasion cake with graduated layers of petals opening out from the center.<\/p>\r\n

The open peony consists of a centre made up of three green pods called \u201cpistils\u201d surrounded by yellow stamen, followed by 5 rows of 23 petals (although the second row can be skipped and the number of petals reduced to 19 if you wish).<\/p>\r\n

Gumpaste Open Peony Tutorial: Materials<\/h4>\r\n

\u2022 Gumpaste – pale green (using gooseberry gel color or avocado) for the center and your choice of color for the petals
\u2022 24-guage wires cut into quarters
\u2022 Needle-nosed pliers
\u2022 Edible glue
\u2022 Plum dust color or deep pink
\u2022 Paintbrush
\u2022 White floral tape.
\u2022 Yellow hammerhead (lily\/peony) stamen (if you can\u2019t get yellow, buy white and dust them with yellow dust, then steam to set the colour).
\u2022 Peony petal cutters – small, medium and large
\u2022 bone tool or small ball tool
\u2022 foam pad
\u2022 Peony veiner or Dresden stool
\u2022 apple tray from the grocery store or other former in which to rest the petals whilst drying<\/p>\r\n

Gumpaste Open Peony Tutorial: Method<\/h4>\r\n

\u2022 To make the pistils, take a piece of green paste the size of a blueberry. Roll it into a ball and then shape into a cone. (You can do this by placing the ball in the palm of your hand then use your index finger roll one end into a pointy end.)
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\u2022 Next take a piece of 24-guage wire and make a hook in the end with a needle-nosed pliers. Dip the hooked end into edible glue, wipe the excess off and insert the hooked end into the bottom of the cone. Pinch the paste around the bottom of the cone to secure it onto the wire.
\"\"
\u2022 Gently bend the tip of the cone slightly and leave to dry. Make two more pistils exactly the same. Using a little plum dust, color the tips of each pistil. Tape the three pistils together using half width white floral tape, with the tips facing outwards.\u00a0\"\"
\u2022 Next take three bunches of stamen and tape them about half an inch down from the top, as shown below.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 Then fan out the stamen as below.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 Then using your sugarcraft tweezers or needle-nosed pliers, bend back the bunches of stamen at a 45 degree angle.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/p>\r\n

\u2022 To attach the stamen to the center pistils, tape them in place in the spaces between each pistil. Then adjust the stamen so that they fan out around the pistils fairly evenly.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 To make the wired peony petals, you can use a grooved board (“Cel board”) if this is your preferred method or you can use the following extra easy method. Start by rolling your gumpaste into a sausage shape and place it horizontally on your work surface.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 Using your rolling pin, roll the gumpaste away from you, keep the edge closest to you a bit thicker to insert the petal wire, then roll the end furthest from you a little thinner.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 Cut out your petals with the bottom of the petal cutter placed on the thick edge of the gumpaste. You will need 5 small petals, 9-13 medium petals (depending on whether you want to have four rows of petals or five) and 5 large petals.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 On a foam pad, use your ball tool to thin the edges of the petals by rolling the bone tool along the edges of the petals.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 To vein the petals you can use a veiner like the one below….<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 …or you can use the following method: with the fat end of your bone tool, draw the tool from the tips of petals down about a half inch to cup them inwards.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 Then using the thin end of your Dresden tool, draw vertical lines along the petals to creating veining.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 Using 24-guage white wire cut into quarters, dab one end into edible glue, wiping off the excess, then insert the wire into the thick end of the petal. Pinch at the base of the petal to secure it to the wire.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 Then leave the petals to dry overnight in an apple tray from the grocery store or other former (I’ve cut out the individual sections from an apple tray for easier storage).<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 Assembling the peony: start by taping the wires of each petal down about an inch or so. Adding floral tape to the wires at this stage will help secure the petals together and prevent them from spinning around the center as you assemble the flower.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 We will be creating 5 rows of petals for the peony. The first row of petals will consist of 4 medium petals. Attach the first petal with half width white tape to the center of the flower (the pistils and stamen). Then add in three more medium petals around the center.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 Moving onto the second row, this will consist of 4 more medium petals and is optional (if you’re in a hurry you can go straight to the third row). Starting with the first petal, position it between two petals of the preceding layer and tape into place. Continue taping in the remaining petals the rest of the way around the flower.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 For the third row, tape the 5 large petals in the spaces between the petals of the preceding row.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"
\u2022 The fourth row will have 5 medium petals. Attach each petal in the spaces between the petals of the above layer.<\/p>\r\n

\"Gumpaste
\u2022 The fifth row will consist of 6 small petals. Again, attach each petal in between the petals of the above layer.<\/p>\r\n

\"Gumpaste<\/h4>\r\n\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This gumpaste open peony tutorial shows you how to make an impressive focal flower for a wedding cake or special occasion cake with graduated layers of petals opening out from the center. The open peony consists of a centre made up of three green pods called \u201cpistils\u201d surrounded by yellow stamen, followed by 5 rows […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[345],"tags":[249],"class_list":["post-21358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sugar-flower-tutorials","tag-flowers-for-cakes","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cake-geek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cake-geek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cake-geek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cake-geek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cake-geek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cake-geek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31407,"href":"https:\/\/cake-geek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21358\/revisions\/31407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cake-geek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cake-geek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cake-geek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cake-geek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}