How To Make Edible Pearls For Cake Decorating
This is a tutorial on how to make fondant pearls which can be used in three major ways on cakes. First, they can be used in place of sugar pearls where these are unavailable. Secondly, they can be used around cake boarders. Lastly, they can be stringed together to form pearl necklaces. Each of these uses will be examined below.
TOOLS:
(1) Round Wilton Frosting Tips
(2)A Threaded Needle
(3) A Paint Brush
(4) Rolling Pin
INGREDIENTS:
(1) Fondant. I used Marshmallow Fondant. Recipe here.
(2) Pearl/Luster/Color Dust of Various Colors
(3) Color Paste
(4) Shortening (Optional)
PROCEDURE:
(1) Roll out your fondant with a rolling pin. Ensure that the fondant is of even thickness to guarantee uniform pearls. The thickness of the rolled out fondant would depend on how big you want the pearls to be. The size of the pearls is also determined by the size of the frosting tip you use. The color of the rolled out fondant would depend on the color of pearls you are making.
(2) Use the tip of the frosting tip to cut out circles in the fondant. While you can cut out many circles at the same time, I typically work with 20 circles at the most at any given time. This ensures that the circles do not dry before they are shaped into pearls.. Feel free to use different tip sizes for different sizes of pearls. After shaping all the pearls from the rolled out fondant, gather any leftover fondant, knead it into a smooth ball, roll it out again and make more circles if needed.
(3) Grease your palms with a bit of shortening and roll each circle into a pearl between your palms. Shortening helps to achieve smooth peals and makes them easier to roll.
(4) Leave the pearls to dry a bit before proceeding. This can last up to 5 hours or until they are firm enough to the touch without losing shape. From here on, your next step would depend largely on what you want to use the pearls for.
(A) USED AS SUGAR PEARLS SUBSTITUTE
(1) Sugar pearls are needed by cake decorators to execute a lot of cake designs. Unfortunately, these pearls are not readily available globally. Making your own sugar pearls at home is a sure way to ensure that you have them available for your needs. It also saves you money and would guarantee that you have pearls of various colors and sizes.
(2) If using the fondant pearls as sugar pearls substitute, allow them to dry thoroughly before using.
(3) After they have dried, they can be dusted with luster dust for glimmer or painted with a thick vodka & luster dust mixture to create shiny gold, silver, bronze or other pearls of like nature. If painting, mix the paste in a deep bowl or fluted glass cup. Place dried pearls in container containing color paste and swirl them around to coat evenly with the color paste. Place coated pearls on a flat container without any overlap and leave them to dry before using.
(4) Use water or any other gluing agent to stick pearls to cakes. The two cakes below were made using fondant pearls in place of sugar pearls. The first is a 20th wedding anniversary cake (Tutorial here) and the second is a Sofia the First Cake (Tutorial here).
(B) USED AROUND CAKE BORDERS
(1) Although there are molds which can be used to make pearl boarders for cakes, fondant pearls can also be used for this purpose. In my opinion, shaped fondant pearl borders look a lot better than those created with molds. They also have a more realistic 3 dimensional look.
(2) To use around cakes as borders, allow the pearls to dry and stick around the boarders of finished cakes. They can also be painted or coated before use. The border around the ivory blossom cake below (Tutorial here) was made using sugar pearls.
(C) USED TO MAKE PEARL NECKLACE
(1) To make a pearl necklace, leave the pearls to dry for about 5 hours or until they are firm enough to handle without losing shape but still soft enough to pass a threaded needle through them.
(2) Pass a threaded needle through each pearl. Be careful not to press too hard against them.
(3) Allow necklace to dry thoroughly.
(4) Connect thread to make necklace and brush with some pearl dust for shimmer if needed.
(5) These pearl necklaces can be used for various purposes. One of my favorite ways of using them is on Jewelry Gift Box Cakes like those in the picture below (Tutorial here)
They can be used on other types of cakes like the Paris Cake (Tutorial here); Tufted Billow Weave Cake (Tutorial here) and Dressed Igbo Woman Cake (Tutorial here) below.
(6) Miniature necklaces can be made and used as accessories for cake toppers like the Fondant Teddy with Rosary Cake Topper below (Tutorial here).
(7) The pearls can also be used to make bracelets like the one below (Tutorial here).
How To Make Edible Pearls For Cake Decorating
Source: http://www.gratednutmeg.com/?p=2931
Posted by: eddythavess.blogspot.com
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