How is the best & easiest way to make edible fall leaves?
Thanks

You can also make them with chocolate. You can 'paint' over an actual (non-poisonous of course!) leaf on the veiny side, let it firm up and peel it off.

I mix colored fondant like ornage,green,brown,yellow and roll them together and then use different leaf cutters like Maple leafs etc to get the shapes.I then dry them randomly on the wilton curved flowers formers to make the shapes whimsical.Dust them with gold lustre dust and other colors as well.

Or, for delicious not just technically edible, marzipan works great. Easy to tint and shape -- won't be as thin or as strong as gumpaste, but people can actually eat them.

I use wafer paper and an edible ink printer. Scan real leaves, save in a file and print. Absolutely authentic, easy and obviously paper thin.

Leah_S....I have tons of wafer paper but I am afraid to use it in my canon IP3600 as it jammed in another printer before and I had to literally throw out the printer because there was so many pieces inside..

Is there a trick..Does the paper need to be soft..Mine has been out for awhile and a bit brittle.

I like using the sugar based icing sheets, print leaves and then put them on Sugarveil and punch them using a leaf punch. You can do the same on Fondant and gumpaste, but Sugarveil is my favorite. You can probably make them with our Premium Icing Sheets the same way without putting them on any other material as that brand holds up well.

Hey Debbie,

Have you found another supplier to Canada for your products?Gourmet square or whatever still hasn't listed any prices or even have a useable purchasable website...I would really like to try your EI sheets!!

I made them out of gumpaste, and airbrushed them. I think they turned out pretty nice. The acorns are caramel and chocolate clay.

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-photos-by-Loucinda.html

I do like luvbuttercream and make them out of chocolate. I've done them by coloring chocolate and painting it on like these leaves


http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1272146


and just this past weekend did some that were all milk chocolate and then dry brushed with some luster dust and sparkle dusts (my personal favorite) and they look like this

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1824362&sub=1824365

I have to do a pointsettia for a wedding cake. I think I will try to use the chocolate on a silk poisnettia I have. Thanks for the info!

I was just wondering the same thing (how to make fall leaves). I love the idea of chocolate on real leaves. Could it just be melted regular chocolate chips, or does it have to be a special kind of chocolate? Thanks!

I am starting a leaf project tomorrow and am so glad I found this thread! I never thought of using chocolate!

Question though. .. I have never "painted or dusted" over chocolate before. what color chocolate should I use to make the leaf and will it be easy to paint over? do i just paint like I would on gumpaste?

Thanks!

I just finished a fall themed cake. I have a pin oak tree in my yard and used it to make silicone veiners and acorn molds, (Amazing Mold Putty from Michael's purchased with a 40% coupon.) I used Nick Lodge's gumpaste recipe, (love it!!) and simply cut around the pattern impressed on the thinly rolled out gumpaste, having left a thickened ridge in the middle to insert the wire. I had colored the gumpaste a light rust color and after drying on crumpled foil, dusted with ground non-toxic chalk*. The acorns I made of gumpaste with a double sided mold I made from the same putty and painted them with Americolor/vodka. I thought about chocolate, but was too hurried and already had gumpaste.
I really like the effect and you can see it in my photos. 'Twas incredibly easy to do.
* A tip I learned here on CC as petal dust is so darn expensive. I rub the chalk against a tea strainer and pour the resultant pile into little screw-top stackable bead containers found at Michael's.
This is a little wordy, I talk too much, but I hope it helps.

So you can buy chalk lets say at Michaels and as long as its non toxic you can use it for petal dust?

That is the impression I got from the various threads I've read on the subject. (I know my kids when they were little ingested a lot of it, which doesn't really mean it is safe, I realize...) I use it on gumpaste which I tell people is technically edible, non-toxic, but surely not palatable. It is for decoration only. I am sure there are some who would disagree with me though.

I am making fall leaves for a fondant covered wedding cake. The leaves will be scattered over the sides of the cake. What would be the best way to attach them to the cake and should I make some of the leaves on wires or toothpicks or just leave them with nothing inside? Thanks.

I just did a small trial run making chocolate leaves. I used Wilton candy melts and tried both real and silk leaves. I definitely got better veins with the silk leaves. Question: Every one of my trial leaves broke as I carefully peeled off the silk/real leaf. Most broke down the center vein. Any ideas?? I need to make these for real tomorrow or Wed. at the latest. TIA!

After you've put on one coat of chocolate and it has hardened, try adding a second (or even third if the leaf is large) coat before you attempt to peel off the leaf. I've airbrushed leaves with different colours made using white choclate.

Also, I've made acorns using Kraft caramels and chocolate fondant. Cut the caramel in 1/2 and roll (in your hands) to the shape of the acorn (make it fairly flat on the top). Roll out some chocolate fondant (could even use a Tootsie roll) and cut out a circle using the bottom of one of your icing tips. Press it down and around the top of your caramel acorn and then take a sharp knife and score thin lines in both directions across the acorn. Finish up with a tiny tip on the top if you like (this sometimes will fall off so I don't usually do this).

Good luck.

Thanks. The leaves actually didn't stick in a bad way, so they were pretty easy to peel off the chocolate (both real & silk leaves). But when I held the stem and peeled off the leaf, the chocolate leaf below would break along that center line. I thought I made them fairly thick (really don't want them very thick), but I'll try again with them thicker. I like the idea of a 2nd coat of chocolate after the 1st has hardened. I'll let you know how it goes...

Just for clarity......when you peel away the leaf from the chocolate, it is the real leaf that you're peeling. Keep the chocolate stable so that it doesn't break.

In your reply it looked like you're holding onto the real leaf and peeling the chocolate away.

Sorry, I guess my grammar wasn't the best. I did peel away the silk leaf, not the chocolate one. The trick for me ended up being to make a thicker layer of chocolate on the leaf. It didn't matter if it was one coat or two. I had hoped for thinner leaves, but they were just too fragile. Once I made them thicker, they were fine. Only a couple broke out of several.

I know most here have done the chocolate, gumpaste, fondant leaves route. But has anyone else but me tried cookie tuiles? I did a fall leaf wedding cake 3 years ago (photo in my pics), and they turned out beautifully (and tasty, too!)

I went a little crazy, making 5 different stencils for the tuile paste, and used 4 colors to run the fall spectrum, but you could always simplify the choices as needed.

I'd love to hear if anyone else has done cookie leaves like that!

~ Chef Scott

I just uploaded a cake into my gallery (gallery of one, LOL) with fall leaves. They were SO easy and fun to make! I did mine out of marzipan, then used powdered food coloring for the colors. The best part is that I was able to serve the marzipan decorations with the cake, which I consider way more palatable than fondant. As a matter of fact, my girlfriend said she was at a wedding last weekend where there were fondant leaves, and she said they were gross. The marzipan was so easy to work with and it was so much fun. You can make them a month in advance if you want to.

AnnieCahill, those leaves are beautiful! Lovely colors! Where do you get powdered colors?

AnnieCahill, I love your leaves and pumpkins - and the fact that they are made out of marzipan!!!

I would love to use marzipan. If you make yours, would you mind sharing your recipe?
It is so expensive to buy ready made, but I would love to use it since it tastes better than fondant (or gum paste).