My latest cake commission has been an adventure into a new method of decoration, but one that I have enjoyed immensely. I've been reading and watching lots of sugarcraft tutorials for a while now and I was really looking forward to trying some of my new-found knowledge out on a new cake, and I got the chance when I was asked to make a lemon drizzle birthday cake, complete with oversized blowsy bow!
I found the tutorial for this particular bow on The Cake Journal (http://cakejournal.com/tutorials/how-to-make-a-gum-paste-bow/), another fantastic cake craft website which includes lots of brilliant sugarpaste tutorials.
I learnt about a very important ingredient when reading this tutorial, Tylose powder, which you knead into your fondant icing. This enables you to roll it out really thinly, and makes sure that your creations hold their shape. Tylo glue is also a recently found essential, made by mixing a teaspoon of Tylose powder with about 30 tsps of water. Give it a good mix and shake, leave overnight and you have something that resembles wallpaper paste but sets anything rock hard on cakes, it's amazing!
I would recommend you use a template for your bows unless you are a genius at holding measurements and shapes in your head (I'm not!) Measure your cake and cut out a template for the bow to make sure that it wont be too big or small for your finished masterpiece.
A little tylo glue goes a long way, so don't smother your icing. if you do, you'll probably get to stuck to it as well, and no one wants your finger attached to their cake!
To shape the folds in the bows, the tutorial recommends you use a cardboard tube wrapped in kitchen roll, however I found this was too big for my bow. I used fabric wadding shaped into a sausage and then wrapped in kitchen roll as I found that this gave a better shape.
Tip: Put the fold of the kitchen roll on the bottom as if it raises slightly, it can create a ridge in your bow. When you need to remove the kitchen roll, gently pull it and it should come straight out. When you're fixing your bow, be careful not to get glue on the kitchen paper, as this will also stick it tight and it will make it very difficult to remove.
Leave the bow to set for as long as possible, I left mine for about three days, as this ensures that the icing dries hard. I was amazed when I picked mine up how resilient it was, which is essential when placing the bow on the cake.
My new favourite piece of sugarcraft equipment is a silicone rolling pin. It makes rolling icing so much easier than the traditional wooden version and gives a lovely smooth finish. A must when working with small amounts of sugarpaste, I don't know how I've lasted this long without one!
When you have attached the cake to the cake board, place the letters to make sure you've got enough space and that the placement is correct, you don't want any misspellings when everything is stuck down!
Make the tails using the same template for the folds. I spent a lot of time trying to make sure that both of my tails were identical, and if that's what you want, then it will take a little bit of time. However, when tying a bow with fabric ribbon, has yours ever looked completely symmetrical and perfect? Probably not, so don't panic, it's a lot more realistic when it has a few little quirks of its own.
Place the different elements on the cake and make sure that you are happy with the placement before you stick it down with the Tylo glue. Make sure that you use enough glue to make sure that the bow is stable on top.
The tylo glue is also brilliant for sticking on silver dragees. I found the best way to attach them was to paint the glue directly onto the cake when I wanted them to be placed, then used my paintbrush to coax them into place.
The finished cake! I was very pleased with the finished result, and the use of the complimentary fuschia pink ribbon to match the icing really tied it all together. Now I have completed my first big bow, I have lots of ideas for different colours and designs that I want to try, and I look forward to posting some more pictures of my experiments and cakes in the future.
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