Cherry Blossom - Part 2

Remember this post?  It was quite a few months ago now [hangs head in shame!]  But in my defense the reason that the Cherry Blossom's never got finished in time for Hubby's birthday is because of Hubby himself, he decided that he was far too masculine to be having sugar flowers on his birthday cake ... actually, if I am honest he decided he was also far too old to be having a birthday cake at all!  I managed to mask my disappointment, it was his birthday after all and we celebrated by going out for a Chinese buffet instead.

So, this has left me with the little Cherry Blossom's sat on my windowsill looking at me everyday - just willing me to finish them.  We've got a low key weekend planned so the cake kit has been pulled out of storage and I have spent the morning building up some more of the flowers.  Mind you, I'm still not sure what I am going to so with them once they are done!

Cherry Blossom - Flowers

Bend 5 stamens in half to make a group of 10 short stamens.

Cut a 30 gauge wire into 4 equal lengths and trim down the green florist's tape to 1/4 width.

Place a length of wire against the bunch of stamens, positioning the top end of the wire slightly above and parallel to the stamens.  Wind the florist tape 1.3cm below the stamen heads around the stamens and the wire to secure in position.  Fold the protruding part of the wire down beside the taped part of the stamens and continue to tape around this part to form a small pad of tape below the stamen heads.  The petals will be attached to this later.

Trim the ends off the stamens on the diagonal and continue to tape down the length of the florist wire.  This prevents a bulk of tape in one area, creating a smoother stem.

Thinly roll out some pale pink flower paste and use a blossom cutter to cut out the petals.  Frill each petal with a silk veining tool then use a ball tool to cup the centres.  (Some blossom cutters will also cut small slits into the petals to help with frilling, my cutter doesn't so I used a sharpe knife to cut the slits myself.  Also, I use a toothpick to frill the petals rather than a silk veining tool as my kit doesn't contain one of these tools and a toothpick does the same job - this was how we did it at college too).

Apply some edible glue to the base of the stamens, insert the wire through the centre of the petals and feed them up the wire to the base of the stamens.  Gently squeeze the flower paste around the stamens to hold the blossom in position, forming an opening bud.

To make an open flower, make the opening bud as described above.  Roll out some more pale pink flower paste and cut out another blossom shape, as before, then apply some edible glue in the centre and thread this onto the wire.  Squeeze this second set of petals gently around the others to form the open flower.

Repeat the above steps to make several opening buds and complete flowers to hang in clusters for one branch of cherry blossom.

Taken from Paddi Clark's 'Sugar Flowers for Beginners'