AHi, I'm new to gum paste and tried it for the first time today to make some flowers. I used the 1tsp of ty to 250g of fondant, and altho I found it a lot easier to use, after leaving my roses to dry and then carefully moving them a couple of the petals I had made broke. How can I prevent this from happening again? Thanks for any tips :)

Hi there, I always use sugarpaste (fondant) with gum tragacanth added (is ty short for tylo?). I don't generally get cracking as such but the petals are delicate and sometimes they do break. I always make more than I need to allow for some breakage.

good luck with them

Amanda

Is the fondant homemade or store bought? If it's store bought you just need 3/4 tsp to 250 grams. If it's homemade you should use 1 tsp to 250 grams. Store bought fondant usually has gums in it already, so it might have had too much tylose in it. Gumpaste is fragile, though, so the thinner you roll it out the more breakable it will end up being.

You can also try to work with it using vegetable shortening instead of cornstarch, that makes it a little softer and extends the work time. Using cornstarch will dry it out and make it more brittle.

ahh thank you for the tips, i'll def trying using less next time as it was a shop bought fondant not homemade, I've not tried to make homemade fondant before!  I enjoyed using it cos I was able to do more with it than just normal fondant.  Ive just uploaded my photos to my page of the roses!