I am making a tiara this week, (well, actually I did 2).....and have done them in royal icing........I'm still letting them dry........and am scared that they will break!!!!!! I'm thinking of getting some chocolate today to try that also........

If you have made tiaras, what did you use? Royal icing or chocolate? And why do you prefer royal icing or chocolate?

Thanks for the help!

I've made two. One out of Royal Icing and one out of Gumpaste. I highly recommend the gumpaste. It took a while but it came out cleaner and I was much happier with it, and it's rock solid.

The Royal Icing one shattered into several pieces when I picked it up.

I have pictures of both in my photos.

I use neither. I make mine out of gumpaste. Extruded from a clay gun and then formed into a tiara.

Some samples I pulled off the internet:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandrascakes/2726336325/

http://media.cakecentral.com/modules/coppermine/albums/userpics/12146/normal_ICES_2009_Chicago_013.jpg


I didn't make those tiaras. Just showing what it looks like.

Much easier to work with than RI and in my opinion, much nicer looking.

I have not tried the chocolate but I did the RI tiara, and it was a pain in the butt! It took me 3 tries before I was able to successfully get one off the container intact. It was extremely fragile and I was worried about handling it too much.
I love the way the gumpaste ones look. I want to try my next one with gumpaste.
If you decide to try the chocolate, please let us know how it turns out!

I made mini tiaras out of chocolate and had alot of breakage with those too, and it's less forgiving when your making it then RI.

last time I made one I used gumpaste and a clay gun and it turned out much nicer.

Oh, Lordy ..........now I AM scared!!!!!!! I may try the gumpaste one today.......it looks so much nicer!!!!
I don't know why I thought this would be an easy thing to make!!!!!!!

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Don't worry, it will be fine. But I think gumpaste and the clay extruder are the way to go. However, I did mine over the course of about a week because I wanted to make sure that each section was complety dry and was holding together since I was having to turn and flip and rotate my "form" and I didn't want it slipping off or sliding around.

I think if you use gumpaste you will like it.

Ditto on the gumpaste. I have made them out of several mediums, and gumpaste is definately the nicest and strongest of the bunch. I did mine over just a couple of days. Made it all in one day, let it dry on the form one day, then let it dry off the form (so the back of it would dry) one day and then painted it. To make it symmetrical - make a snake and divide it in half - use one half for each piece (that way they are both exactly the same size on each side of the tiara) I also used shortning to help keep the gumpaste from sliding around on the wax paper. If you have any questions, just ask!

Thanks, mgwebb68 and Loucinda!!!!
I'll give the gumpaste a try!!!!

susan

i need to make a tiara and small 3d bmx bikes and was wondering how to go about constructing them!!
if i use gumpaste do i make each shape/ section wait for them to dry then stick them together???
i'm a complete beginner and and help would really be apprecited!
i don't even know how to make gum paste and how to stick bits of it together!!!
thankoo
xxx

I just made my first tiara yesterday out of gumpaste and it's definitely the way to go. I've tried RI and it's too hard for me to remove and place on cake without breaking.

I use Nicholas Lodge's gumpaste recipe (you can use Wilton's premade too - any kind will work)

Put the tiara together while the gumpaste is still pliable. It won't work if you dry the pieces and then try to put them together. Use gum glue (a little gumpaste dissolved in water) at each joint.

I also make a thicker band of gumpaste to use as the bottom edge, and I apply it after I have the rest of the tiara in place. It will hide all of the little bottom edges of the rest of the piece.

The only one I made(in my pics) is made out of fondant/gumpaste and an extruder. I found it fairly easy,although a bit fiddley when I added the smaller details.
Hope u give it a try!

Well, my two royal icing tiaras were total disasters!!!!!! The first one broke while taking it off the wax paper, and the second one broke on the end, which I tried to "glue" back together, but when I started putting on the disco dust, it shattered to smithereeens............................
SOOOOOO, after reading everyone else's suggestions, I decided to try a gumpaste one really quick........so I cut out some heart shapes (didn't want anything too complicated), and did the band, and voila.........it worked like a charm!!!!!!!
So, here's the finished product.......it's supposed to be a pillow cake, but that's a whole other story!!!!!!!! And the silver disco dust looks WAY better in person than it does in this pic!!!!!! geez............I learned a lot with this one!!!!

Thanks to all of you for your help and advice!!!!!!!!
Susan

Glad it all worked out! I love doing the tiaras with gumpaste it works out a lot better than the royal!

Good job!!

Glad the gumpaste worked for you. I tried RI and like you, it shattered to smithereens when I picked it up.

I was able to follow my patern better in RI, but it just looks so much cleaner in gumpaste. Here's the one I did (hope I can get it to attach).

I have used both royal icing and chocolate, and had breakage issues with both but nothing that couldn't be repaired. Chocolate was better for dring quicker, RI was more stable. However I am going to have to try gumpaste next! Only I need an extruder now....

I'm a little late with the response, I really like doing it in those white chocolate candy melts. I've made 2. Very sturdy, withholding dusting. The best part was letting the little kids eat it! GP dries too hard. It was a melt in your mouth tiara!

I know everyone has their preferences, here's my idea.

i wanted to try a tiara out of chocolate because its not to hard for the kids to eat but ive never made on be for is it hard

I've tried the royal and gumpaste and for some reason they always exploded into a million pieces when I tried to pick them up, I've made many with white chocolate......ful sized and mini (for cupcakes) and always had success

Oh man I wish I had read this post last week! I just did an RI tiara this last weekend and it definitely broke! Luckily, it wasn't smithereens, so I was able to stand up the pieces in the buttercream on top. It was for family, so I just made sure no one looked too closely!!

It was such a pain in the bahooty tho! I'll defnitely try out the white chocolate or gumpaste next time, they are gorg!

The white chocolate ones are very pretty. I'm not sure my wrist could handle all that piping, that was one of my issues (besides the breakage) with RI. The gumpaste was definitely easier on my hands and wrist, especially with an extruder.

Plus my 3 year old has already seen it, knows its for her Birthday cake and I don't think she would allow anyone to even try to eat it. She won't even eat decorated cookies, she just holds them and looks at them and carrys them around, for hours. You tell her to eat it and she says "no Mommy, it's pretty".

I have made them with the chocolate too, but couldn't get the pearl to stick to it, what is the method you use to get them with the pearl finish? (and that is another reason why I like using the gumpaste better - not a problem to paint at all)

I just brush the pearl dust on dry with a blush brush, it goes on nicely!