What Happened My Sugarpaste Butterflies?
Decorating By Jennifer353 Updated 26 Mar 2012 , 10:08am by Jennifer353
Its my mothers birthday this weekend and she and the rest of my family are coming to visit. I made sugarpaste roses and butterflies last weekend to decorate her cake for the butterflies I rolled out the paste thinly and used the plunger cutters to get the shape and indents. I left them to dry propped at about 90 degrees so they would look like they were flitting when they were dried. I painted the edges with some colouring paste. They dried nicely and I left them covered with a fabric type umbrella in my kitchen/living room. When I looked at them last night though they were gone flat and softer than when I had looked at them last. I assumed sugarpaste once it was dry didnt need to be kept airtight and letting air at them would be beneficial. Was that my mistake or did I do something else wrong?
The roses look fine.
Thanks for any suggestions!
did you add anything to your fondant?
you must add tylose (I think that is the UK name) to the fondant and it will strengthen the fondant. Moisture will still make them a little soft, but they will last longer that straigth fondant items.
once dry you should not keep them in an airtight container, as this will also soften it. The best is to keep them in a cake box.
Has it been humid? I had several flowers that were perfectly dry that just wilted into a puddle due to the humidity here in the last week. It doesn't take much. Prop them up again and dry in front of a fan, then put in an airtight container.
you can also place them in your oven overnight with just the light on. The gentle heat from the bulb will dry them out in a few hours
you can also place them in your oven overnight with just the light on. The gentle heat from the bulb will dry them out in a few hours
That too! I forgot about that niffty little tip, my oven doesn't have a blub.
Thanks for the replies - I never got notifications so only seeing them now.
I didn't add anything, beyond a little paste colouring because I thought sugar paste would dry hard anyway.
It wasn't very humid even for the UK and we get nothing like the humidity much of the US get. They were in my kitchen/living room so I guess there might have been a little humidity from the kitchen....
Thanks for the oven trick, may use that in the future!
For future reference another question: Is there anything you can do to keep things made from sugarpaste from turning into a puddle when you are putting them on a cake with very moist frosting? Is it just a case you can't use them? If so what should you use instead for things like flowers?
I made a tirimisu cake with marscapone, Marsala and a few other ingredients frosting and it was very moist. I knew the flowers wouldn't last well and left the roses standing above the cake a little (made them on coctail sticks so just didn't push them in the whole way) but within 20mins the blossom flowers and butterflies were soggy and a few hours later the butterfly still on the cake (the blossom section had been eaten!) was litterally a pink puddle roughly in the shape of a butterfly.
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