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Preparation time 1 hour (plus drying)
Servings SERVES 16-20 (for a 20.5cm (8in) round cake)
This pretty cake, decorated with delicate sprigs of flowers painted directly onto the sugarpaste, would be lovely for a spring or early summer celebration. You can create your own design by drawing it freehand or tracing an existing one, or use our template.
Vlog:
Technique:
Blog:
2 steps
1
Covering the cake with sugarpaste Roll out the amount of sugarpaste you need for your size of cake. Lift the sugarpaste over the cake, smoothing it across the top and down the sides and trimming the bottom edge neatly.
HOW TO COVER A CAKE WITH SUGARPASTE
2
Covering the cake with sugarpaste Leave the cake for several hours or overnight in a cool dry place for the sugarpaste to firm up.
3 steps
1
Drawing the design on the sugarpaste Practice drawing your design on a piece of paper before you start painting the cake. You can either use our template as a guide or create your own design.
2
Drawing the design on the sugarpaste Place your cake on an icing turntable. Using your food pen and pressing very gently on the sugarpaste, draw your design onto the cake, working round the cake and drawing a section at a time.
Expert Tip
If you create your own template, take care to space the different elements evenly so the design looks balanced when you’ve drawn it on the sugarpaste.
6 steps
1
Painting the design Pour a small amount of vodka into a glass.
Expert Tip
Use the vodka to dilute the food colours and also to clean your brushes. You can use other clear spirits but vodka works best as it evaporates very quickly and leaves no flavour behind on the icing. You may need to change the vodka as you go to prevent the colours tainting each other.
2
Painting the design Put a little of each food colouring you are using into separate cups of the paint palette. You can use the colours neat or mix in a tiny amount of vodka to dilute them.
3
Painting the design Use the green food colouring to paint the leaves, adding a small amount of yellow to tone down the colour if it is too bright.
4
Painting the design Clean your brush in the vodka and then paint the flowers with the yellow and pink food colours. You can mix the two colours together to make peach if you wish. Leave the cake in a cool dry place for several hours to give the colours time to dry.
Expert Tip
If you prefer to paint the decorations on your cake in pastel colours, use powdered colours in less bold shades, mixing the powders with a little vodka to make them into a paint.
3 steps
1
Adding a thyme wreath Transfer the cake to a cake board. Take a few sprigs of thyme and wrap some fine floristry wire around them to bind them together. Cut off the excess wire with kitchen scissors.
2
Adding a thyme wreath Continue adding more sprigs of thyme until you have a garland long enough to wrap around the base of the cake.
3
Adding a thyme wreath Arrange the thyme around the cake and bind the ends together to make a wreath.
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