I have been asked to make a 30th Birthday cake for a couple, and after meeting with them and sending off some sketches, they have chosen the following design, a tropical gerbera cake with gorgeous bright tropical colours. I think this will be my most colourful cake to date!
They had specifically requested gerberas on the cake, and I was looking forward to making them as they were a new flower to add to my repertoire. I bought some PME cutters (which you can find here: http://Craftcompany.co.uk) and chose my tropical coloured fondant in lime green, orange and fuchsia pink.
To give me a head start in making the flowers, I searched YouTube until I found a fantastic tutorial from McGreevy cakes which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7NoxpInzXQ. It's a brilliant video that shows you all of the hints and tips to make the best flowers possible. Following the guidance in the video, below are my pictures from making my first gerberas.
Measuring the light green sugar paste for the centre of the gerbera...
...before texturing it with a cocktail stick.
I made all of the centres first and then left them to dry a little before using for my flowers.
I cut out two each of the different petal sizes and put them in a plastic wallet to keep them pliable. On my first attempt I rolled the fondant too think, so make sure it is very thin to achieve the delicate petals of an actual flower.
I then snipped each of the petals in half with scissors. Note to self: Must buy smaller pair of scissors for sugarcraft work as kitchen scissors are too big for this type of delicate work.
I stuck a centre to the smallest petals using sugar glue, and then folded the petals up and over it...
...until it was covered all the way around. I then repeated this with the second of the smallest petals so I had two layers stuck over the centre.
The medium and large petals needed to have their petal thinned using a Celstick. Don't be afraid to thin the petals quite firmly with the thicker part of the stick to give a nice cupping effect. In the picture above I haven't thinned them properly and I have a line, rather than a nice smooth shape. I went back over them and made sure they were much thinner.
To finish the gerbera off I stuck the two largest petals together, trying to make sure that the petals didn't overlap, then repeated this with the medium set and finally stick the centre in the middle. I lined a shallow mince pie tray with kitchen roll and gently pressed each gerbera into one of the dips to give it a nice shape.
Once all nine gerberas were completed, I left them to dry overnight.
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