I was working on a baby shower cake that got Palm trees. Well everything was going well Cake was done the leaves were attached to each other looking good, had not yet finished assembling the trees yet, figured I'd do that when I got the cake to the customer. Well took the cake to the customer, It made it in one piece, went to attach the Leaves and they stayed together on the tree trunks long enough to take a picture. I followed the instructions in the newest Wilton yearbook for a palm tree assembly, Problem after sitting for 4 days the gum paste had not dried enough to hold the leaves together. I just wanted to cry.

I attached a picture of the cake before the leaves all fell off.

If it was a hummit day it wont get hard or if it had been raining.

That's what I was figuring, it's been really humid here and threatening rain. Even my royal icing is giving me a hard time.

Adding a little bit more Tylose to your gumpaste might help with some of the humidity problems. It won't prevent them completely, but stiffer gumpaste stands up a little better.

Your trees look great. Very nice job.

Michele

Your cake looks great....sorry about the gumpaste not drying.

As I type, I have some gumpaste items laid out on wax paper on my son's bed (he's away at college). I have the ceiling fan on and the windows and blinds closed. (I closed the door, because my DH will think I've completely lost my mind, "putting your cake decorations to bed now are you?").
I made them on Saturday and they are just about dry at last check. I usually give my gumpaste items at least 1 week of dry time because it is humid here in the NE. Next time try having a fan on low gently blowing on them.

Boy have I had this problem before! It could depend on the brand of gumpaste, too, in addition to other uncontrollable factors like weather. I will tell you this...don't use Bakel's Pettinice gumpaste!!! It is the worst. I used this stuff for some decorations, and I have air conditioning in my home, and after 1 week it still wasn't dry!!
Later, I made some decorations with MMF, and they were just about dry in 1-2 hours!
I told myself from now on, I'll probably just use fondant with tylose or gum-tex mix in it.

I'm always fighting humidity here in FL. Adding tylose powder was a good suggestion, I do it almost every time I work with gumpaste. I ended up using an old wooden end table tcabinet hat has a door on the front with shelves inside and drilled a hole in the back and inserted a very low watt light bulb in the back. It keeps everything nice and dry! Got the idea from another CC'r and saw copy paper stored this way back when the copy machines were more fussy then they are today!

I made a football helmet face mask and had the same problem...gumpaste just would not dry. Finally turned the oven on and let it heat up. Then turned it off and put my face mask in the cooling down oven..............I left it in about 15 mintues and took it out............it was soft and then it got hard as a rock! Worked like a charm.

I'm having problems too but it's the first time I've made gumpaste by adding tylose powder to fondant. I've used several different kinds before but it was the first time using tylose powder. Guess I need to take them to our downstairs with the dehumidifier. That's work better than anything for me.