Hi!

My question is, if you have to make quite a lot of roses - the same colour, for a wedding cake do you colour the huge batch of gumpaste at one go? coz many people say it's very difficult/almost impossible to get the same colour when colouring gumpaste/fondant.

If so, is there a more efficient way of colouring a huge batch of gumpaste - coz gumpaste dries out quickly and i was told only to work with a bit of gumpaste at a time. when i say huge batch...i mean enough to make, let say 15 large roses?

i was thinking, would a pasta machine be faster to knead in the colour instead of using hand?

btw, i'm wondering how long do you all take to make gumpaste roses?( from rolling it out to make it pliable, colouring and hand moulding the roses? coz i'm wondering whether i'm taking far too long to make them!

oh, and also, how far in advance would you make the roses?

thank you so much!

I would just grease my gloves with a little Crisco and have at it, it really is a good little arm workout. The Crisco will help keep it from drying out as quickly.

Are you making it yourself or purchasing it ready made? If you are making it yourself, why couldn't you add in the color as you are mixing it up?

I've head of people using their mixers and dough hooks to color fondant, maybe you can do the same with gumpaste?

OMG and all this time I was mixing color in by hand... my KA was probably laughing at me...

One recipe of gum paste is often a pound. That amount, if it is carefully wrapped (twice) it will stay fresh for several weeks. One batch will be plenty for 15 roses. It goes a very long way.

Hi,
thanks for all your tips. i'll try the crisco.

as for whether i use home made or ready made - i'm using home made gumpaste. and i'm in the tropics...so my gumpaste is made on the dry side so as not to get too easily affected by the humidity. that's why it's a pain to colour it. it takes me about 30 mins to colour around 400g of the gumpaste! does that sound right - or am i impatient?!

i have no idea how long it "generally" takes for a person to make a gumpaste rose. anyone would like to share how long it takes them?

thanks.

If I have to make a large amount of colored gumpaste, I color it while I'm making the gumpaste. I use Nick Lodge's recipe and I add the color when I get the royal icing made. It's much easier this way.

If you make the roses in an assembly line fashion it will go faster. I start with making all the bases, let those dry and then I add the first row to all the flowers and so on.

Good luck!!

Can you color them with luster dusts?

I've also seen on the Food Network cupcake comptition one of them dipping the dried petals in a liquid food color bath, dried, and then assembled.

TamiaAZ, would you mind giving me the recipe for gumpaste. I am currently purchasing it ready made which can get quite expensive.

I usually use the dough hook on the mixer. It works really well and gets the colour blended quite well.