Weekly Tips - 1. Catching Dreams Tutorial

Welcome to the new blog. This is the first in a series of weekly tips.

To celebrate the new website and the new blog, my first tip is going to be an entire tutorials.

Wafer paper is amazing stuff! It really is.

So my top three favourite products in this tutorial are:

Saracino 0.27mm Wafer Paper

Drageekiss

FPC knitting mat

You can use the amazon app to find them and remember to always shop original brands.

Catching Dreams

It has long been said that sleeping beneath a dream catcher protects you from nightmares but I also think they are beautiful. Although they are often made from willow wood, I thought that creating one from copper with the lacey copper board would work beautifully for the current trends in cakes. Add wafer paper feathers for a delicate finish.

You will need

Edibles:

Prepared cake 15cm (6in) round buttercreamed on 15cm cake cards

1kg sugarpaste (Saracino)

Gel paste colour: blue; orange; red; brown (Saracino)

Lustre dust colour: copper (Saracino)

air brush colours: spring green, brown; holly ivy; black (Rainbow dust)

Vodka

Flower and Modelling paste – 150g white (Renshaw)

liquid shiny (Saracino)

Edible glue

1 sheet A4 wafer paper –white (saracino)

4mm edible dragees: orange; matt blue (Drageekiss)

Equipment:

Long rolling pin

Flexi smoothers

Small sharp knife

Palette knife

½” wide flat paintbrush

No.2 round brush

Ramekin

20g white wires

Scissors

8” round drum

15mm board edge ribbon

Knitting Mat (FPC Sugarcraft)

Star lace mat (Crystal Candy)

Drageekiss

Circle cutter set (Ateco)

Square cutter set (Ateco)

1.5cm square cutter (tinkertech)

1. Knead the sugarpaste. Pin out the sugarpaste to 3mm thick, then cover the cake. Trim off the excess and smooth with the flexi smoothers to achieve sharp edges.

2. Pin out the remaining paste to cover the drum. Emboss with the star lace mat. Leave to dry overnight.

3. Mix Copper lustre dust with liquid shiny in a cup to a smooth liquid paint. Paint onto the covered cake drum with a large brush.

4. Colour 100g of sugarpaste with blue paste colour and 20g with a mix of orange; red and brown paste colour. Roll a strip long enough to wrap round the cake (half of the required is shown here) and 9cm tall. Cut out hollow squares using 5cm and 3.75cm from the blue paste. Then cut small 1.5cm squares from the rust coloured paste.

5. Fix the squares onto the strip of paste following the pattern shown. Evenly space them out. Cut some of the squares in half and fix at the top and bottom of the strip. Gently press the paste into place with a smoother.

6. Emboss the paste using the knitting texture mat applying even pressure for a neat finish.

7. Trim the top and bottom of the strip with a knife.

8. Moisten the base of the cake with a little water. Roll up the strip you have created then unroll around the cake. Neaten the top with the edge of a knife if required.

Dreamcatcher

9. Knead the flower and modelling paste until flexible and smooth. Roll out thinly and cut one hollow circle using 6.5cm and 5cm circle cutters, then three hollow circles using 3cm and 2.25cm cutters.

10. Glue the three smaller circles together with a little edible glue and by overlapping them in the centre. Then fix on the larger circle. Paint with the same copper mixture as before.

11. Use a small ball tool to neatly emboss hollows for the drageekiss to sit in. Apply a small amount of glue into the hollows. Load the dragees into the drageekiss using the funnel and gently add them to the dream catcher. Set aside to dry for two hours.

Tip

Shake the drageekiss before starting to work with it to settle the dragees in correctly.

Tip

Hold the drageekiss horizontal for best results

Tip

Press the drageekiss plunger in fully and allow to retract fully. This will ensure the next dragee is correctly loaded

12. Cut three feathers 3cm wide and 16cm, 23cm and 19cm. Use a scant amount of edible glue to fix the wire onto the smooth side of the white wafer paper.

13. Cut snips into the feathers at an angle rising up each side of the feather. Careful when cutting the top of the feather not to snip through.

Tip

When cutting the top of the feather, cut long and short cuts alternately to avoid cutting through.

14. Load the airbrush with brown colour and lightly colour both sides of the feathers. Empty the well and add 5 drops of brown, 3 drops of holly Ivy and 2 drops of black. Swirl gently to mix then turn the airbrush down to the lowest setting and gently colour stripes from the outside of the feather to almost the centre.

Tip

Start colouring the stripes from approximately 9cm away from the feather for a gentle colour, move in closer for sharper lines

15. Create the singed effect at the end of the lines by moving in close to the feather. Begin airbrushing off the feather and gently move closer until the colour just catches the edges.

16. Use a little royal icing piped down the back of the feathers and fix into place. Begin with the largest feather. Place the medium feather to the right and the smaller feather to the left. Add the dreamcatcher in front with more royal icing, gently pressing into place.

17. Add additional dragees onto the front of the cake below the dream catcher. Pin out a little of the left over rust coloured paste and cut 1/2cm thick strips to add below the dream catcher. Fix them in place with edible glue.