Gumpaste Flowers

While I have not been busy posting, I have been busy trying new recipes and enjoying the beautiful summer weather here in Calgary. This past Friday began with the annual parade to start the 99th season of the Calgary Stampede, the world’s largest rodeo competition and fair. The city becomes quite crazy for 10 days, with hundreds of thousands of tourists coming in from all over the world, free pancake breakfasts everywhere, all day drinking parties, and nightly fireworks. This year the parade was just that more abuzz with the special guests, Prince William and his new bride Kate.

So we made sure to avoid anywhere they might be. …Much to the dismay of our little girl.

We found a spot right at the tail end of the parade route with a great view of everything

There are SO many horses currently in the city that it is mind boggling!  We had a fun time at the parade but
I was still busy at home getting gumpaste flowers prepared for Saturday since I was demonstrating at the Stampede
Grounds in the western showcase building on behalf of the Calgary Sugarcraft Guild. I was a little behind schedule (what else is new) in being prepared, since I only began Tuesday night to think about what I would do. I decided on making a few samples of some gumpaste flowers to display and then I brought some fondant covered cupcakes and decorated them with simple flowers and designs to make decorating more approachable to the beginner. In the end there was one decorated with hydrangea blossoms, another with small rosebuds, another with simple daisy cutouts, one with small purple blossoms, etc… I wish I had taken pictures of them but I did not bring my camera since I knew I would be too busy demonstrating. At the end of the day, I saw some weary people sitting down for a cup of coffee and donated my cupcakes for them to enjoy.

I made a small banana cake and covered it with fondant to display these tulips (the cupcakes were also banana).

These were the first tulips I had ever made and am quite impressed with myself! There are so many colors of flowers  that you can just let your imagination run wild.

Some daisies….

and magnolias…

I will admit that making gumpaste flowers is not for everyone. They are time-consuming , but they can last a lifetime. When making a wedding cake or other special cake I think that sugar flowers are best since most fresh flowers are poisonous or sprayed with pesticides. When using fresh flowers it is important to make sure that there is a protective barrier between the cake and the flowers. Or play it safe and make gumpaste flowers!

p.s. thanks to everyone for all of your support during the Canadian Postal lock out. Due to back to work legislation the lock out is now ended and the postal workers are again delivering the mail.

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