Bakingangel, I thin the piping gel with a little water. Not much, just enough to loosen it.
Katiekake, Pixie dust and Disco dust are different. For the gelatin flowers, bows and butterflies you want to use Disco dust because the particles are considerably larger than other dusts on the market. Pixie dust is just that, a very fine particle like dust which will smudge and ruin your life in this application. I believe pixie dust was originally developed for use in the airbrushes if I'm not mistaken.
Thanks, Bobwonderbuns I would have felt really bad if I had ordered the wrong thing, you relive my mind a lot.
Well even Pixie dust has it's place -- I have every kind of dust known to man and with the exception of the dust in my house I have a use for all of it!
Can someone explain how to do the flowers and butterfly? What do you use for the body of the butterfly and how do you attach the wings. For the flowers do you "paint" the gelatin in the mold and then let them pop out? How do you put them together. I know this is a stupid question but I just don't get it on my own.
Thank you
i havent done these butterflies
but i done different things with gelatin
for the flavor i add clear vanilla flavor ,even if you add sugar it wont taste good only ok
Yes, you "paint" the gelatin onto the impression mat for the flowers, butterflies, and bows. It will literally "pop" off the mat when they are dry!
The bodies can be made with either gumpaste (Diane sells the mold - has big and small butterfly bodies, a bumblebee and a ladybug) or you can use royal frosting to make the bodies.
I just use a small amount of the warm gelatin to attach the parts together. I have left the wings together and cut them apart both, it will work either way for the butterflies. I haven't tried the piping gel, but that will work too.
Lou and BWB:
I have been following all of your experiments and am ready to try myself.
DH is at the store right now buying the ingredients. I am going to attempt to make some butterflies first. I want to try them with the SF jello added because it is for a cake for a bunch of teenagers and they probably will try and eat them.
The only SF jellos available were various red flavors, orange and lemon. I asked him to get the lemon in hopes of tinting it a light purple (lavender preferably). I don't have Diane's impression mats but am going to try using some veining mats I picked up last year at the ICES convention.
Wish me luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Will check back when I have some results to share.
OK, lemon + hint of purple = puke.
On to second attempt. Plain gelatin + clear vanilla flavoring + hint of purple = lots better!
OK, lemon + hint of purple = puke.
That gave me my chuckle for the evening. Thanks!
Me too!!! I will know not to mix those colors!!
I have been busy with cakes this week, several graduation cakes/birthday cakes and a wedding cake. Now that those are done, I have a couple of days to play again......
Now, where are those butterflies???
NEED HELP!!!!!!!!!
ok so I made my mixture according to directions that came with mats. heated gelatine mixture....waited 10-15 min.....NO foam/scum. whats going on? do I need to wait longer? I used Knox gelatin.
I tried what I had made on bow mat and it wouldnt spread right. It seperated into small droplets of gelatin no matter how much painting I did.
Oh I also have my sheet on a heating pad. Can someone help me?
I don't use the directions that came with the mat, I used the ones she gave us for the bows to do all of them. (4T. gelatin to 12 T. water) I heat my gelatin up until it is pretty hot (10 second intervals for about 60 sec total) I have always had some "scum" and I use knox gelatin.
To me it sounds like the gelatin is too thin, I would let it harden up again, then reheat it and see how that works out. ( that isn't in the instructions - I just have good luck with doing that)
What kind of brush are you using?
I did 4T gelatin and 12T water also. The brush is just a regular soft brush. Its been sitting since I posted and still no scum.
will it harden on its own if let out? should I microwave more? thanks for helping...I'm so bummed!!
Yes, it will harden on it's own - it won't take long. You may not be putting it on thick enough (which is why I asked what kind of brush you are using) I think I have a pic of the one I use, I will upload it so you can see which one it is. (it is about 1/2" wide)
I just loaded some pics.....one is the "scum" (there are 2 views of that one)and the other is the one of the brush I like to use.
http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1377136&done=1
my brush is very similar but a bit wider. That doesnt seem like much gelatin in the bowl. Is that all of your mixture?
ok my mixture is much thicker now! should I paint it on now or wait longer then reheat? if I reheat wont it thin out again? sorry for all the questions
the bowl in the picture is about 1/4 of the total recipe!
If it is thick now, go ahead and use it. You want it to be about the consistency of fingernail polish.
While using the gelatin, if it gets too thick, just reheat it 5 to 10 seconds at a time - you don't want it to get real hot again, that will thin it out too much. (I now use a "coffee cup" warmer to keep my gelatin warm - it works out really well!) When you heat it up, (while you are painiting a mat) there may be some spots of thicker gelatin, just keep stirring and it will all meld together again -hope that makes sense.
Yes! thank you SOOOOOOOOOOO much! fingernail polish....good to know. I'm going to try reheating it right now! wish me luck! thanks!
I can't wait till mine get here, this looks so much better without the wires!
Thanks
Taresa
I made mine yesterday and really didn't have any scum either. But it worked just fine. Wonder if the clear vanilla I added had anything to do with that?
After I used what I could, I just left the remainder in the cup and it firmed up. Reheated today for about 5 seconds, stirred and was ready to go to town again.
I'm working on the painting of the wings, so pictures will come later.
I don't get the scum but I do get the foamy bubbles on the side that I have to skim off (or it leaves bubbles in your finished product -- NOT cool!) -- [Don't ask me how I know that...]
The recipe will only make a small amount of the gelatin liquid but out of that I got like 5 pages of butterflies. I let it set overnight and get hard and the next day nuke it at 5 second intervals for no more than 30 seconds (usually not nearly that long) and paint with it again!
I never waited for any scum. I was just impatient. LOL. However I did get little bubbles in my gelatin after it dried, maybe that is why. It didnt matter to me because I was just making them for fun and plus, the teeny bubbles almost made it look "sparkly". If I was brushing the gelatin on too thin it would start separating and leaving holes everywhere. When I did it a little thicker I stopped having that problem.
So has ANYONE tried my recipe that uses SF gelatin? Im so curious to see how it works for you. I know the colors are limited, but at least no one will puke if they try to eat it. LOL.
I was playing with the stuff last night and put the slightly cooled gelatin in a disposable piping bag with a tiny round tip and I let little droplets fall onto a piece of wax paper and dry. They look like pretty little jeweled polka dots! I think that would look neat on a cake to have shiney round jeweled polka dots. Does anyone know if they will melt or bleed into BC?
Ooohhh.....another cool idea!! I bet those little jewels are gorgeous!! I would bet that they hold up ok - put them on a crusted buttercream - we'll have to experiment now again......LOTS of leftover buttercream here and SF jello just waiting to be played with.
Tune in for more later today..........
Sorry - I didn't realize we were not allowed to put such pictures on here. They told me they had to remove the picture of the brush and the gelatin with the scum on it. Hope that doesn't mess anyone up.
I want to try to make a bow sometime this next week. I'm very excited about this! But I had a thought today that might be ridiculous, but since I've not tried this method, I don't know!
I had first thought about "painting" a figure with this method. For example, tinting the gelatin the color of a school logo then placing waxed paper over an outline of the figure and painting inside the lines. Then I realized that the particular logo I was thinking about has lots of feathers and I would probably have a hard time working fast enough, even if this technique would work. Then, I wondered...could you paint a square of gelatin and then cut a figure from it?
Or is that ridiculous?
Ziggy, you can try painting on a large surface (impression mat) then cutting out the outline but for what I think you are describing it won't work. One thing you can do that's pretty cool though is to paint on a large impression mat like you would for a bow but then take a paper punch in the shape of a flower or heart or whatever and punch out shapes on the dried gelatin (after it's removed from the impression mat). Then glitz the edges with disco dust and stick on the sides of your cake. Very cool indeed!
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