I am trying to make gumpaste flowers from a book - all the classes are booked up until May and I cannot wait that long - and I am running into problems. I purchased premade gumpaste from a cake supply store in NYC and am having issues working with it. The paste is difficult to tint. I start out adding a little gel-paste food color and knead the paste to work the color in, but as the paste gets warm from the kneading it being to get sticky like chewing gum. I let the paste rest and reharden and try again, but the paste just starts to melt again and the color does not get incorporated. I ended up with marblized paste and the tint was no where near the dark pink color I wanted. Any advice on avoiding the chewing gum meltdown or getting the paste to a dark consisent color would be appreciated. Also, any suggestions for a green food color that is more flower leaf appropiate than the bright green that the leaf green gel makes would be great.

you may need to add some powdered sugar or some corn starch if the paste is really sticky.

You may not be able to get a really dark color with a premade paste either. Best to start with a lighter shade and then add more color in the form of petal dusts after the flower is made

For a better green, try a moss or a forest green. Or just to tone down the leaf green add alittle pink to it(very little)

Welcome to Cakecentral!! I usually coat my hands very lightly with Crisco..seems to really help with the stickiness issues. Curious...what brand of gel paste coloring are you using?

I'm using the gel paste from NY Cake Supply. It looks like the americolor paste , but they put their name on the label instead. It comes in all the same colors.

..just wondering if that may have something to do with it. I've used Americolor and Wilton and never ran into that problem.

i was wondering if it had to do with the amount of color you are adding. I find that trying to color a piece of white fondant a dark color can be near impossible, usually you have to deepen the color with the dusts after its made. I find that too much color changes the consistancy of the paste.