Watch Part 1 How to Make the Center of a Tulip http://cakecentral.com/b/tutorial/center-of-a-tulip

Watch Part 2 How to Make Tulip Petals http://cakecentral.com/b/tutorial/tulip-petals

Watch Part 4 How to Paint Tulip Petals http://cakecentral.com/b/tutorial/paint-tulip-petals

Learn how to assemble a tulip sugar paste flower from cake designer Amy Noelle in this Howcast cake decorating tutorial, part 3 of a 4-part series.

At this point, I’ve created my center and my wired petals. I need to put them together before adding my second layer of petals.

Let’s start with the center and I have my petals. In order to add my wired petals, I need to bend back the petals so that they open up. At this point, if I look at my petal, it looks like the petal is falling over.

So I want to grab the base of it and open it up. Make sure you don’t grab the top of it because, if you grab the top, it’s just going to snap off; this is sugar that we’re working with.

So I’m going to bend back my petal on the wire and I want to make it look like a little chair that I could sit in. That way it will go right against my center of my flower.

I’m going to attach three petals with floral tape. I want to keep most of the floral tape in one hand and a tiny tab on the other side. Fold it over and pinch the tape together.

Now rotate the wires and pinch the tape. Now I have bent the wire for a second petal.

For this layer I need to add three petals that are wired all the way around. As soon as I have all three petals on, I can run the floral tape down the length of the wire and pinch off any extra floral tape that I have and just set that aside.

I do have the ability to move the petals around just a little bit. I want to make sure that my petals are roughly triangulated around the center. I’m just going to rest that right straight upside-down on my table before I add my next petal.

Now I’ve rolled and cut my petals, just as I did for the first layer; it’s exactly the same steps. I cut it with my petal cutter, separated the pieces, pressed them onto the veiner. The difference here is that I did not use wires; I’m not using wires on this layer.

When I attach these petals to my flower, I use a teeny tiny little bit of glue on the petal edges; just trace the bottom edge, just a little bit. Turn it over and attach it to my flower; I’m just going to press in.

Now, tulips are very much like bell-shaped or trumpet-shaped, so when we’re adding them, we want to make sure that the flower stays nice and round as we work around the flower.

If you have a little bit of extra, it’s okay if a little piece of the petal works up the stem; we’ll paint that stem later when we go to finish it off. I need a little bit more glue for my third petal, and I attach that around as well.

Now, if I need to, I can pick the flower up and push down the pieces. And I can add a teeny tiny little bit more glue to make sure that everything sticks all the way around and then that shape stays nice and round as I work around the flower.

Now all of my petals have been added. There are six total; three of them were wired and three of them were not.

I’m going to leave my tulip upside-down, right on the table to dry overnight before I paint it.