Hi there. I am new to this forum and began decorating in May of this year. I started out with fondant because that is what drew my interest to cakes in the first place. I don't understand when to use royal icing vs. gumpaste. What can any of you expierenced people out there tell me about this and thank you for any advice to this newcomer.

Hi there, gumpaste mainly use for making flowers and other modeling like people and animals and stuff like that. You can buy it or you can make it at home too! But I prefer to mix 50/50 shop bought gumpaste and fondant. If you are making people and animals and other things, you also can add CMC/Tylose powder to your fondant and knead well. When gumpaste dry, it dries really hard. That's why you can't use it to cover cakes.

Now, I'm not a royal icing expert. I use royal icing to do a boarder, write wordings and attach pearls/dagrees on a cake. If you like to learn about this method, there are three books called " The International Shool of sugarcraft". I don't make it at home. I buy ready to use royal icing powder.

Here is a link for the fisrt book.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Z2gy-JXou3wC&dq=the+international+school+of+sugarcraft&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=iA5vSsmdHOSQjAf3w62dBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4

thanks for your input. I really apprciate it.

Gumpaste is used for modeling things similar to fondant. But it dries harder than fondant and isn't really that edible.

Royal icing is used for piping similar to buttercream. But it also dries hard and isn't very edible.