Pink Parrot Tulip Tutorial

finished Tulip rather large, I don’t have a small vase so this is sitting in a champagne flute

You’ll need and foam board, rolling pin, ball tool, gumpaste (small ammount of white and whatever colour you want the base of your tulip to be), edible glue (just a bit of tylose dissolved into water) 26 gauge wire & 1 20 gauge wire (both wrapped) Veiner (this one is from Way Beyond Cakes by Mayen etsy store) and a tulip petal cutter(this one is a large one from Sugar Delites)

make a small hook on your 20 gauge wire dip it in a little edible glue wipe off the excess on the back of your hand, take a large pea sized piece of white sugar paste insert the hooked end of the wire into the base of the gumpaste ball and roll base between your fingers to forn this shape using the veining tool impress 3 dents into the top and allow to dry overnight, then using green petal dust mixed with alcohol(I use Tequlia but thats only because we always have it in the house…Teehee… but most people use Vodka) paint it green and dip it into pollen powder this one in made by Sugarflair but you could use very fine semolina, I then like to paint the base of this with the same colour that I use on the stamens but you can leave it plain green, personal choice

For the Stamens I use 26 gauge wire with a small hook dip it in a little edible glue wipe off the excess on the back of your hand take a half pea sized piece of white gumpaste and roll it into a thin sausage tapered to a point, allow to dry overnight then paint with a small ammount of caramel or brown dust mixed into Vodka (or in my case Tequila) paint the whole stamen and allow to dry

Tape the 6 stamens around the pistil

Cheats way of wiring petals
roll out your gumpaste thinly so you can see the indent of the cell board, dip your 26 gauge wire into some edible glue, wipe excess off on your hand and place over the bit where you can see the indent, press lightly, then fold over your gumpaste and reroll out thinly so you can see the indent through the paste again, this is so much easier than threading wire through petals

place the cutter over the wire making sure it is centered press down on all edges, then I hold the cutter and lift the excess paste away, then carefully lift the petal and you will see the wire is perfectly in the center

Using my veiner (curtosy of Way Beyond Cakes by Mayen etsy store) I vein by placing each petal on a foam base and pressing both sides, I press the inside of the petal first and is will become less imprinted when you press the outside and you want the veins on the outside more, allow to dry overnight 2 days is best as they will be stronger, I use a apple tray as a former to dry as you want the top of the petals to curve over a little

This colour I have dusted with cherry pink dust paying extra care to dust the edges and base of each petal well on both sides

wrap each petal individually around the center, but tape the first 3 petal around then tape the second 3 so the centers of the new petal covers the gap between the first set of petals, skip forward a photo and you will see if I was just confusing then …hehe

Yay finished product, I would usually tape these with a paler green tape but I had run out so this would have to do :-)

-- Jo, NZ, www.facebook.com/cicciocakes