Determined to master the art of fondant! In light of the Cherry Blossom Festival, I decided to test my abilities in gum paste flower making while making a 2nd attempt at working with fondant. I call this cake 'Sakura Petals Falling'. The branches are made out of molding chocolate (no, not molded chocolate!) and the blooms out of gum paste (pastillage or candy clay).
I made the gum paste flowers the night before because they need 24 hours to cure or harden into munchable little candies. At first, I rolled out the gumpaste about 1/4" thick which in the end was OKAY...but later I found that rolling it out as thin as I possible could made for more fragile and delicate flowers. For the larger blossoms, I doubled up on the blooms and glued them together using piping gel (cake decorating medium made mostly of corn syrup). Once cured, I dusted all 70 blooms with Poppy Red petal dust (powdered food color) & Super Red luster dust (edible fine glitter). You can find these at www.lusterdust.com.
I rolled out my white fondant large enough to cover the entire cake and quickly laid it on top and began smoothing with my paddles. This was a fairly short cake so I didn't have the issue of pulling and tearing at the corners from the weight of the fondant. I decided to roll out a ribbon of fondant, stamp it with a geometric Japanese pattern and wrap it around the edges of the cake. I then pressed divets into the pattern and attached pearl dragees with more piping gel.
After molding the branches onto the cake, I attached the blossoms with more piping gel and dotted the larger blooms with pearl dragees. I must say, I was actually proud of this one. It was perfect and free of mistakes!
