To create your paste you can use equal quantities of sugar paste and Cake Star modelling paste together, or simply use sugar flower paste. Knead well and add colour if required ( you may want to make the colour for the centre petals a darker shade, graduating to a paler shade for the outer petals). Make a ball of paste which, when measured against a petal in the small cutter, fits well inside it. Elongate the ball slightly. The secret to our method is in creating perfectly cupped scalloped petal tips and attaching the petals whilst still pliable so the flower can be easily molded into the perfect cup-shaped peony in your hand. Cut out five petals of the next size and repeat the wiring, frilling, bending and colouring as before. Use a ball tool for additional help to curve the petal inwards. Allow to dry a little before adding onto the flower with petals overlapping. This is a very close petal, so you can brush the edible glue all over the petal following steps 10 - 12 and cutting away any excess as per step 11.

bone tool (for softening edge of petals and frilling petals, also included as standard in most modelling tool sets) Transfer the petals to a foam pad. Take the thinnest end of your Dresden tool and starting from the top and middle of the first petal, draw a line down the centre to create a vein. Draw more lines from top to bottom of the petal, fanning out the lines as you go. Brush a line of glue along the length of the paste just above the centre. Fold in half lengthwise and brush another line of glue along the bottom edge. Roll up around the ball, starting the roll as tightly as possible. Take the second small piece and repeat the process. Repeat with the two larger pieces. This will give you a reasonably large peony, but you may add more pieces until you have the size required. Leave to dry. Flip the petals over and curl each scallop with the bone tool as before, as well as thinning/softening the edges of the petals. Curling the scallops of each petal inwards is the key to getting a nice cupped shaped petal when you go to assemble the peony.)For the third row of petals, move onto the next sized cutter and cut out 8-10 more petals. (You might not use all 10 but better to have them cut and prepped in case you do). Thinking of making your own sugar peonies from scratch? Follow our simple step-by-step instructions below to find out how… Place the calyx into the centre of the palm of you hand and use a ball tool to cup and shape the calyx. Take a piece of white florist’s tape (giving it a little stretch to activate the in-built adhesive), then starting approximately 1.5 inches from the top of the three wires, tape the three pieces together.

So if you’ve been meaning to get started learning how to make sugar flowers, then you’ve run out of excuses because we’ve come up with a fail-safe gumpaste peony tutorial for you to try. Take your styro ball and add a dab of edible glue at the top. Cover the top of the ball with one of the veined petals Roll paste out very thinly and cut out two shapes with the smaller cutter, and two shapes with the larger cutter. Working on the smaller pieces first, thin the petal edges all round with either the ball tool, or the end of the rolling pin. Then, using either of these tools, ball each petal to curve inwards – do this along one side, then turn paste over and ball the second side. This will ensure that all the petals curve inwards the same way.

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Use the wide end of a dresden tool to gently frill the top edge, then use the thin end of the dresden tool, to carefully run it over the surface of the petal. Closed Small Bud - You will only need to cut 3 petals for this bud size using the small petal cutter or small petal template. This first row of petals won’t cover the styro ball completely, but the later rows of petals will so don’t worry about that at this stage. Use a JEM veining tool to create texture on the surface. If you do not have a JEM veining tool, you can also use an ordinary veining tool. If you find that there is quite a bit of excess petal around the base (this is what I had), don’t worry, just cut the excess petal away and neaten as best as possible. It may look a bit messy at this stage, but this will be covered with the calyx.