Sugar flowers

Sugar flowers are handmade cake decorations that imitate real blossoms. They are usually shaped from gum paste, a thin-rolling sugar dough, and dried until firm so they can be arranged on a cake.

The Culinary Institute of America's baking text shows how a gum paste rose is built. The paste is rolled to about one sixteenth of an inch or thinner, and a wire is attached to a prepared cone that forms the center. Petals are cut with cutters, thinned at the edges, curled, and attached in layers, each offset from the one before so the flower looks natural. The finished flower is hung upside down until it is fully dry, and the gum paste must be kept covered while working so it does not crust.

Because the flowers dry hard, they can be made weeks ahead. They are kept dry, since humidity softens them, and are usually treated as decoration to remove before eating.