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asked December 28th 2014

Sugarpaste Oasis

Hi
I understand a sugar paste type oasis topper can be made for the top tier of a wedding cake. I am planning to have a go at this and am going to either stick flower paste roses onto it, or wired roses in a posy pick if I can master wiring through the middle of the cel bud as shown in one of the tutorials. If I am unable to get he wire through the centre of the poly bud, I previously found it tricky, would the roses stay put on the sugarpaste? I am concerned that the flower paste roses might soften if there is direct contact with the sugarpaste. Alternatively would it be better to buy a round poly sphere to cut in half and ice with the sugarpaste? Either way as the top tier is going to be a round 5inch cake, what size of sugarpaste sphere/poly sphere should I go for? I am hoping that somebody can help me here please. I am very much in the dark as to the best method to use. Thanks very much. xx

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Hi
I understand a sugar paste type oasis topper can be made for the top tier of a wedding cake. I am planning to have a go at this and am going to either stick flower paste roses onto it, or wired roses in a posy pick if I can master wiring through the middle of the cel bud as shown in one of the tutorials. If I am unable to get he wire through the centre of the poly bud, I previously found it tricky, would the roses stay put on the sugarpaste? I am concerned that the flower paste roses might soften if there is direct contact with the sugarpaste. Alternatively would it be better to buy a round poly sphere to cut in half and ice with the sugarpaste? Either way as the top tier is going to be a round 5inch cake, what size of sugarpaste sphere/poly sphere should I go for? I am hoping that somebody can help me here please. I am very much in the dark as to the best method to use. Thanks very much. xx

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Hello bellescakes

Hope you had a lovely Christmas!
Did you see the sugarpaste oasis on the rose wedding cake tutorial? If that is the one, I think Paul either used chocolate sugar paste or modelling chocolate roses to stick on the mound.
Gumpaste flowers may well soften if placed on fresh sugarpaste because of the moisture contained in it. Sugarpaste does eventually dry out or form a skin but if the weather is humid or wet it will continue being moist and the gumpaste will absorb some of that moisture. If the wired flowers are inserted into posy picks first, they can be placed directly into the cake without the need for a sugarpaste oasis. However if it’s extra height you’re looking for, a half styro foam sphere covered in sugarpaste could work. As for size of sphere, play around with a couple of sizes to see what looks best. Something too small wouldn’t really give you a lot of space to put a decent amount of flowers into. A little too big might not look right unless the flowers cascade, in which case the foam would be concealed by the flowers. If you try it out for yourself you’ll know for sure what you feel looks right. x

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Hi madeitwithlove
Thanks very much I did have a lovely Christmas and hope you did too. Thanks too for you earlier wishes I did mean to respond to that sorry but time took over!
Thanks very much I for the advice about the topper. No I didn’t see this on Paul’s wedding cake tutorial. Which one is it please? The idea behind the prepared topper was so that I could just place it on the cake at the venue. I bought some 3inch silver discs on which to ice with sugar paste as a base and build it from there. But in light of your confirmation about the sugar paste retaining so much moisture etc, I think I will trial the poly sphere method. Alternatively I could just stick the
posy pics in the cake with the wired roses. As you say I just need to try it all out to see how it works. xx

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Hello again bellscakes

Fast forward and see Paul making the posy in this tutorial:
http://www.cakeflix.com/online-cake-decorating-courses/rose-wedding-cake/lesson-7-ribbon-and-posey

As you will see Paul placed the paste oasis directly onto the cake and built the flowers on to it. He hasn’t used gumpaste flowers so do keep that in mind. You could do similar which would save heaps of time.
If you want to do gumpaste flowers I think chocolate paste oasis may be better as it does not hold as much moisture as sugarpaste and the gumpaste flowers should be fine on it. There are loads of chocolate modelling paste recipes online, you don’t need to get expensive paste just for making a posy holder.
I know Paul made his posy directly onto the cake, however if your flowers are heavy I would suggest placing the posy on a small card and dowelling the top tier as an extra precaution. I did have a collapse on one of my cakes, now I don’t take any chances. Obviously if you are going to use posy picks this step would be unnecessary. Paul has loads of tutorials on posy picks and flower placement. I’ll have a little search and find one most appropriate to what you’re trying to achieve. My computer is on the go slow so it may take some time, we can both search the tutorials library! xx

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Have a peek at this tutorial, it lends itself very well to your idea of a styro half sphere
http://www.cakeflix.com/online-cake-decorating-courses/ribbon-insertion-wedding-cake/lesson-3-decorating-with-flowers

Here Paul is using fresh flowers into florist oasis. I don’t want to contradict Paul, he is the expert, but I wouldn’t allow florist oasis to come into contact with cake at all. It tends to break down and the fibres can be easily ingested. The styro ball would be great for inserting wired flowers into. Use the same technique of sticking it down onto a small board, cover it with a little sugarpaste or chocolate modelling paste and insert the flowers in. Take a peek here for more inspiration and information on using posy picks:
http://www.cakeflix.com/online-cake-decorating-courses/festive-thistle-cake/lesson-19-dressing-the-cake
Does any of this help? what do ya think? x

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HI again madeitwithlove
Many thanks. I just had a look at the festive thistle cake lesson 19 as you suggested. It looks a good method but I think I’d probably give the poly half sphere a try first. I found half cut polystyrene balls on E Bay and notice they are hollow in the middle. Is this the right thing to use? Or are they always hollow in the middle? Would it be best to get the same size as the cake card which is a 3inches round card? I will take a look at the rose wedding cake on my laptop as I can’t get any sound on the video on my ordinary computer. Thanks again. xx

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I’ve never seen hollow half styro spheres, I’ve only ever seen full spheres which can be cut in half.
Half spheres could possibly be found in hobbycraft or in artists supply shops but you’d certainly get them from dummies direct
http://www.cakeflix.com/blog/cake-dummies-by-madeitwithlove
I would use the same size as the cake card.
If you can’t get the volume on your computer have a look at the volume setting in the control panel. If you’re using windows there’s a flag or an up arrow in the bottom right hand corner of the screen which says hidden icons when clicked on, you can adjust the volume there.
Don’t forget to look at the tutorial in the first link as well, here it is again
http://www.cakeflix.com/online-cake-decorating-courses/ribbon-insertion-wedding-cake/lesson-3-decorating-with-flowers
I think this is the closest to the styro foam idea.

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Hi again madeitwithlove

Thanks so much once again for all your help! I manged to get ordinary halp spheres and ordered some last night. But these are 2inch half spheres. If I can get the 3inch ones I will get them too as the other ones won’t be wasted.Thanks too for the tip about the volume on the rose wedding cake video I will give that a try and in meantime will continue to search for the 3inch half spheres on the links you kindly sent.

On a slightly different topic I wastched a UTube video last night on how to place a giant rose on the side of a wedding cake. Not that I want a giant rose, but interestingly the demonstrator cut the fat bottom off her rose with great ease, though I don’t know if it was made from sugar paste. She then placed lots of small, medium and large pre-made petals around the rose to build it up and conceal the rose base from view. Her petals were made from a medium that looked fairly pliable to the point she was able to simply break off the bottom of the petals to obtain a sharp point which was then inserted into the cake without breaking the petals. Bit of a long shot but by any chance would you have an idea of what type of medium she may have used for the petals? xx

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If it’s the video from ‘a cake to remember’ the demonstrator is using gumpaste made to her own recipe which keeps the medium less brittle. To make less strong gumpaste reduce the amount of gum tragacanth or tylose powder to sugarpaste. If you fancy making gumpaste/petal paste/flower paste from scratch, you can see some recipes here:

clarke baxter


The only problem with a softer recipe is that flowers and petals do break very quickly and more care is needed when transporting the fully assembled cake.

Going back to half styro foam spheres, Dummies Direct can do them straight away, just give them a phone call and they will make them for you. They’re very quick.

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Hi madeitwithlove

Happy New Year! Once again thanks very much for your help. It’s good to be able to have access to the gum paste recipe but think I’m safer using the squires flower paste!

I did have a look at direct dummies, thanks for the link the site looks really good.

xx

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