Cake Decorating Flowers - How to Make Sugar Paste Carnations for Cupcakes

Cake decorating and learning how to make simple sugar paste flowers for cakes and cupcakes can be a very satisfying experience ~ not mention a very economic one as instead of expensive presents you can now give boxes of beautifully decorated cupcakes.

As with most things there are many ways to create a sugarpaste carnation ~ for my money this is easily the simplest and gives lovely results. A more life like carnation can be achieved by using gum paste rather than flower paste as this gives a more delicate result but when you're starting out making cake decorating flowers sugar paste is much easier to work with and has the added advantage that the results can be eaten. Gum paste carnations are still edible but the gum paste sets to such a hard consistency eating them would not be a pleasant process.

If having made the carnations you want to try something else then why not sugar paste Calla lilies, or if you would like to take your sugar flowers to the next level why not have a look at these sugar flower cake decorating books.

To make your sugar paste carnations you will need:

Pink sugar paste

Wavy edged cookie cutter - the larger the better

Smaller smooth edged round cutter

Cocktail stick

Cooled boiled water.

To start roll out your sugar paste and cut out a circle with the wavy edged cutter, then using the smaller cutter cut out the middle so you are left with a wavy edged donut shape as in the picture to the right.

Step 1.

Once you have your donut take your cocktail stick and make indentations all around the outside edge of the donut to about half the depth of the ring.

Don't worry if your indentations aren't entirey even. They are going to form the frilly edge of a carnation and only the top parts of them will be seen.

Step 2.

Using the cocktail stick or a knife cut through one side of the donut so you have a 'C' shape.

Step 3.

The next step is gently manoeuvre the sugar paste into a straight line. As you do this the sugar paste will naturally want to bend and fold ~ this is exactly what you want as where is does this gently squash the bottom of the fold to help it along.

Step 4.

Now starting at one end gently roll the sugar paste up as if you were rolling ribbon.

Stand your sugarpaste carnation on its end and using the cocktail stick gently fan out the frills to form petals. At places where the petals fold over on themselves from when it was folded into a straight line take a sharp knife or pair of scissors and cut through the fold allowing the petals to fall apart more.

Now place your carnation on a handily made cupcake, put the kettle on, make a cuppa and enjoy.