Hi Guys,
My son is getting married soon and his fiancée wants Echinacea flowers on the cake. I have got the flower petals down OK using a large daisy cutter and drooping over small Styrofoam balls...they turn out exactly as they should, but I am having trouble with getting the centers to look real. I started with a gum
paste ball and manicure scissor to make the "usual" kind of chrysanthemum-ish center, but the echinacea has a kind of Velcro looking loop on the end of each stamen and the center is very symmetrical if you look at it from the top down. Making me NUTZ! I have looked online to no avail
Anybody got anything?
Thanks
Janet
i think i would use the method where you make a ball of paste and place it in a piece of netting and squeeze it so the paste poked through -- then remove the netting to reveal a similar effect--it would not be botanically exactly correct but it would give a very nice illusion--
might work better with marzipan--i would try it with the balls chilled for a (timed) bit so they hold their shape better--these are just things i would test & try--would try a combo of modeling choc with the sugar paste too--i'd try gum paste too
i would also experiment with coloring the outside of the ball, maybe wrap a thin layer of yellow gold color on top of the green then do the net thing and still powder the tips of that orange to mimic the distinct coloring they have--just a thought--it also might make me crazier too ;) but i would try it--
best echinaceas and wedding days to you!
Dear -K8memphis
Thanks so much for your reply. I have often used tulle to create a pattern on the flower centers but never forced it through to make a center. I have never even seen it! Sounds very cool. Do you know where I can view this technique? and thank you so much for your reply
Janet
no no no no no--i mean making the pattern--which method i thought you probably already knew about--yes i mean tulle--but it's only creating an illusion not really making all those stems--but to keep the center from flatting out from the pressure maybe if you chill the centers for a bit you could get something in that shape--idk--just some thoughts for you--
how big are they? you could use wire if the flowers were big enough--or boughten stems that you arrange--sometimes i cut the heads off boughten stamens and cluster them up--would be painstaking but doable--i've never used that many--
but i make baby's breath and dip the tips in chocolate then dip that in dessicated coconut, some teeny nonpariels, tapioca ... you might could get a realistic look that way too...
maybe...
Hi again...
Yes I get you.
As far as size...
The flowers look very similar to daisies but where a daisy is flat and so is the center, echinacea flowers look as if the daisy has been peeled down away from the center like the way you would a banana, so the petals are pointing down, not out, which leaves this rust/copper colored conical shape sitting in the middle of the flower, some of the centers are more than an inch tall cone.
The way I started was the same as making a base for the beginning of making a wired rose. I used a 1 to 1 1/2 inch gum paste cone and then used the manicure scissors starting around the bottom and working my way to the top.
Maybe I could use the net as that would give me a more geometric type of pattern rather than it being so random.. then chill a little? then cut the bottom row and bend it over with a toothpick. My problem is it either dries out too fast or I squish the bottoms while I try to make the top...and I have NEVER managed the loop.
IF I ever manage this, I will try to post, but I am so electronically challenged its not funny!!!
Thanks. Let me know if you think of anything else. I really appreciate it.
Janet :-)
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