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Hi I made Pauls sunflower at the weekend ready for a charity event this weekend but my petals keep breaking and dropping off as the week has gone on I have more and more gaps. Disaster! I used flower paste and allowed them to dry before putting them in place, any ideas as to what I have done wrong I have made some more this morning and left them to dry. Any suggestions would be gratefully received. The sad thing is that it looked brilliant when I had finished it and with all the fiddling it is now going to look a bit battered.

Hi deashead

Join the club, I have exactly the same problem with most flowers I make with flowerpaste.
If you roll the paste out a little thicker you’ll get less breakage. The flower on this particular cake is not botanically correct so you don’t need it to be a fine. Roll the paste out slightly thicker and you won’t get as many problems. Thicker paste is also easier for inserting the wire into the vein. I make a lot more than I need to allow for breakages, or even make an extra whole flower. For this type of flower I use gumpaste ie 1 teaspoon of gum tragacanth or tylose powder kneaded into 250g of sugarpaste rested overnight to activate the gum. Make up all the leaves a good week in advance if you are rolling the paste out thicker. This allows for changes in the weather and humidity.
For really fine work I use the Squire’s kitchen brand flower paste, it rolls out exceptionally thin to make delicate lifelike flowers and it dries very quickly.
Unfortunately there isn’t much you can do to soften what you’ve already made. You could try gently rubbing the petals with a little trex (shortening) loaded onto a soft flat brush to make them less brittle. However the colour will come off and you’ll need to touch the petals up. I can’t promise it will work for you, although it did help my gigantic rose petals which were made for a wedding cake.
Hope this helps, and even more I hope other members can help out with other ideas. x