Cake decorating Ideas, Tools and Cake Icing Recipes
Fondant Icing
Fondant icing is a great way to dress up any cake for any occasion. Look here for best fondant icing recipes, tips, tools and supplies.
Fondant icing is a sugar-based paste that can be used to decorate desserts such as cakes, cupcakes, and cookies. It’s made by boiling water and sugar together to make a syrup and then adding corn syrup and vanilla extract.
A really, really useful and money saving thing to have in your Sugarcraft kit is a tub of Tylose powder. It has quite a few uses. One of them is making your own edible sugar glue. The particular powder that I used to use required a mix of one part Tylose Powder to 30 parts water. You give it a good mix, put it in the refrigerator over night, and you have enough glue to last you a while! So you can imagine, if you were to use just one teaspoon of Tylose Powder at a time, you would make a lot of glue for your money, in comparison to buying the ready made stuff.
Another very handy use is to make fondant stiffer. Sometimes when making models, or flowers with fondant, it tends to get quite soft, and doesn’t dry as hard as flower paste. By adding some Tylose Powder, and working it into your fondant, you will find that it adds more gums to it, and it will dry harder.
So what do customers say about it? And what tips do they have?
The Good
Customers really appreciated the fact that buying Tylose Powder saved them money on buying both gumpaste and glue. They were also impressed by the quality of this product.
Tips From Customers
For best results, knead in the Tylose Powder to your fondant and let it sit, covered, overnight.
For places with higher humidity, use more Tylose Powder in your fondant.
Experiment with the amount of Tylose Powder needed in your fondant – too little will not make it dry hard enough, and too much will make the fondant too dry, and will leave cracked and rough edges.
To be honest, most people over on this side of the Atlantic seem to favour using PME modelling tools. They are by far the most common that I see around . However, I have looked at this set in the Wilton catalogue a good few times, and the price seems reasonable in comparison. And the case would be a very handy addition to this set. So I was wondering how good these Wilton tools actually are.
There are 10 tools in this set which are numbered and colour coded to make them easy to find and organize. The handles are designed to be easy to grip, and are ergonomically designed. Seven of the tools are double-ended, so in reality you are getting 17 tools! The tools included are:
Shell tool and knife; large & small bone tool; quilting & cutting tool; scriber & cone tool; large & small veining tool; large & small ball tool; umbrella tool; palette knife and 2 modelling sticks.
Sounds good?! Well what do real customers who have tried this kit really think?
The Good
Customers seems to appreciate the variety of tools included in this kit, and say that it contains all that you need to get started with your cake decorating. The case and the fact that the tools are numbered makes it very east to store, transport and organize your tools.
Many of the customers were very happy with what they got for their money.
The Not So Good
A few people commented on the fact that some of the tools seemed a little bit too small to be effective. One person also felt that the quilting tool was cutting strips instead of actually just embossing a pattern.
Some more professional cake decorators felt that the construction was a little bit cheap, and that there were small bumps and marks in them from the manufacturing.
Conclusion
From what I have read, beginners and home bakers seem to be very happy with this set of tools from Wilton. However, if you are a more professional/commercial cake decorator, you might be better off investing in sturdier tools.
So what is Sugarcraft anyway? Increasing in popularity all over the world, Sugarcrafting has long been popular in the UK and USA. A recent upsurge of cooking, baking and cake decorating TV programs such as “Ace of Cakes” have made people more and more interested in creating artistic looking cakes for all occasions. The recent recession has also made it more viable to make your own cakes for special occasions rather than paying out a lot of money to have one made for you.
Sugarcraft Tips
We have complied some sugarcraft tips here to assist you with your sugarcraft journey. We’d welcome any feedback or suggestions that you may have.
Some professionals, although making and decorating cakes for a living, would say that it is still more of a hobby than a business. The amount of time that is invested in making a delicate bouquet of flowers could be as much as 40-50 hours! However, if you get hooked by the Sugarcrafting bug, the satisfaction that you feel when you have completed a work of art makes it all worthwhile!
So What Is Sugarcraft?
Well, Sugarcraft can be described as three-dimensional cake decorating. It covers a huge variety of styles, and includes characters and models made from sugarpaste or fondant, to amazingly lifelike and botanically correct sugarcraft flowers.
Fondant is usually used to cover a cake – and can be bought pre-coloured, or can be coloured to exactly the right shade, usually using colour pastes. You can also use dusts in various colours to “paint” or brush colour onto your finished work.
Some of the most popular companies that manufacture Sugarcraft items are PME, Wiltons, Sugarflair, Orchard Products, FMM, and JEM. You can buy a huge array of tools, boards, cutters, plungers, colours, pastes, dusts and much much more to make your work easier. Although the initial investment may seem a lot, most of these tools will be used over and over again for years to come. A good idea is to begin by taking a workshop or a class in the basics of Sugarcrafting, and a good teacher will teach you how to make the best use of your tools, and to get multiple uses out of your various cutters.
Sugarcraft FAQs
What is sugarcraft?
Sugarcraft is a creative art, where sugar is used as a medium to produce masterpieces mainly for decorating cakes for special occasions like baptisms, birthdays, engagements, weddings, anniversaries and special events.
What is the meaning of sugar craft?
The culinary art of making things from sugar.
What is Sugarcraft Cake Decorating?
Sugarcraft can be described as three-dimensional cake decorating. It covers a huge variety of styles, and includes characters and models made from sugarpaste or fondant, to amazingly lifelike and botanically correct flowers.
How do you make a sugarcraft Rose?
Roll fondant out into a small rectangle shape. Use a special fondant rose cutter to cut out a long petal shape. Then using a smoothing tool, thin the edges and roll to make a rose.
How do you make sugarcraft paste?
Ingredients
¼ cup (60 ml or 4 tbsp) tap water.
14 grams granulated gelatine (1 sachet is 13 grams)
180 grams (1/2 cup) glucose.
15 ml (1 tbsp) edible glycerin.
1 tbsp shortening (plus about 1 tbsp for kneading)
900 grams icing (confectioners’) sugar, sieved.
10 drops of vanilla (or other) essence.
Food colouring (optional)
How many petals does a Sugar Rose have?
If you want a larger sugar rose, do as follows: Roll out your flower paste/gum paste thinly, this time cut out five rose petals with the next size of cutter. Use your dogbone tool on all five petals.
What are flowers on cakes made of?
Delicate life-like sugar flowers are made from gum and confectioners/icing sugar, mixed into a paste and shaped into flowers and leaves that dry to a porcelain-like hardness. However, sugar flowers can also be made from fondant icing or piped with Royal Icing.
A really, really useful and money saving thing to have in your Sugarcraft kit is a tub of Tylose powder. It has quite a few uses. One of them is making your own edible sugar glue. The particular powder that I used to use required a mix of one part Tylose Powder to 30 parts water. You give it a good mix, put it in the refrigerator over night, and you have enough glue to last you a while! So you can imagine, if you were to use just one teaspoon of Tylose Powder at a time, you would make a lot of glue for your money, in comparison to buying the ready made stuff.
