Gum Paste Recipe

I used to make this a lot for making gumpaste flowers before I had access to ready-made gumpaste. Try to finish it within 2 weeks otherwise it will turn sticky if your environment is humid.



Gumpaste

1 heaping tbsp liquid glucose
4 tbsp warm water
1 tbsp gum tex or gum tragacanth
454g icing sugar, sifted

• Combine liquid glucose and warm water in a bowl. Microwave on high for 20 sec. Remove from microwave and stir to blend well. Return to microwave and heat in 20 sec intervals until liquid glucose melted.
  
• Place gum tex and 340g of the icing sugar in a large mixing bowl. Stir to blend well. Make a well in the center and pour in the glucose-water mixture. Mix well to form a soft dough.
  
• Place mixture into a plastic bag, scraping out the last remnants with a spoon. Seal bag properly and place in a container. Allow to rest overnight or at least 8 hours at room temperature. DO NOT REFRIGERATE.
  
• Gumpaste will have solidified into a hard mass. Dust work surface and your hands with icing sugar. Add the remaining sugar, kneading well until mixture is pliable and slightly sticky. You may need more sugar if gumpaste is very sticky.
  

Thanks for this, Jo!

Hi there, I just made my first batch of gumpaste using Tylose powder. Just wondering, if the gumpaste is slightly harder, how do I go about softening it? Do I add shortening or water? Arigato~

Tylose is much stronger than gum tex so you would expect the gumpaste to be harder. Knead in some shortening to soften but it doesn't help much if it is too hard.

Can the glucose and water be double boil instead of using mircowave? Do we mix with K beater? Still with gumpaste and fondant. Is this the one that we use to do roses and figurine!

Amy wrote: Can the glucose and water be double boil instead of using mircowave?

Yes, a safer way to not overheat especially after gelatine is added

Amy wrote: Do we mix with K beater? Still with gumpaste and fondant.

No, use dough hook.

Amy wrote:Is this the one that we use to do roses and figurine!

Yes

Hi!

I made this when I was first trying out gumpaste flowers but since then, have been using fondant mixed with gum tex. Is there any downside to doing this?

Thanks!

The sane Anne

Fondant + gum tex is a fast way of strengthening fondant but this paste is not as strong as gumpaste as far as modeling and flowers are concerned. The store bought gumpaste is even stronger.

Btw, sane Anne, you were missing in action for a while. Busy with the marzipan covered cake huh :evil:

Thanks Jo. I wasn't in action as far as postings were concerned but I wasn't missing (playing the role of silent observor) - except for the Hari Raya week.

The 11" marzipan covered fruit cake was definitely a handful especially since it was square. I actually made sizes 6", 8" and 11" for a wedding. I covered sizes 6 & 8 in a jiff but it wasn't so easy with the 11. You can also imagine how heavy the 11" cake would have been - could hardly lift it in the end - had to get Hercules to help!

By the way, I was at your place of work last week - got me some stuff and am excited about the bead maker which I am hoping to use soon. I only found leaf veiners there. Forgive my ignorance but do we use the same for flowers? I remember seeing a more rounded structure online which are used for flowers.

There are a few petal veiners here. You don't normally share leaf veiner with petal's unless that paricular species of flower has got veins which look like veins of leaf. If you are think to vein your orse petal, you can make do with the peony petal veiner sold here. There are other petal veiner like lily, anthurium, orchid, etc.