Use a photo of a cluster of hydrangeas as a guide while you are creating your edible versions.
Flowers made from gum paste, fondant or sugar have long been used as edible decoration for wedding cakes. Those surprisingly realistic embellishments might seem as if they take hours to make and years of skill to perfect, but that's not always the case. One of the easier flowers to create from icing is the hydrangea. The technique only takes a few minutes to learn, and can produce an impressive piece of edible flora.
Instructions
1. Place the contents of the gum paste or fondant container on a nonstick work surface and knead in the gel paste coloring of your choice, a few drops at a time, until you achieve an even, pastel-hued mass of gum paste. Consider traditional colors of gel paste, like blue, red or violet, to make normal hydrangeas or experiment with more vibrant colors to make hydrangeas one would never see in nature.
2. Roll the tinted gum paste out to a thickness of two millimeters. Cut out hydrangea flower shapes with the cutters, as many as you can get out of the sheet of gum paste.
3. Dust the silicone flower mold with cornstarch. Lightly press the into one gum paste cutout to add details to the flower. Carefully remove the flower. Repeat with the remaining flowers, dusting the cornstarch each time before pressing. Place the flowers back on the cutting board to dry.
4. Take a small paint brush and dust off any cornstarch that remains after the flowers have dried, then brush luster dust on each flower, starting from the center and moving outward.
5. Place a dot of royal icing in the center of and attach an edible pearl to each. If desired, you could add nonpareils instead of edible pearls. You could also further decorate the flowers with the royal icing.
6. Set the flowers on a baking sheet and allow them to dry for several hours, or up to one day.
Tags: each flower, flower mold, mold with, mold with cornstarch, , royal icing