How to Add Outer Labellum to Orchid | Sugar Flowers

Watch more How to Make Simple Sugar Paste Flowers videos:

Learn how to add the outer labellum to an orchid sugar paste flower from cake designer Amy Noelle in this Howcast cake decorating tutorial, part 2 of a 5-part series.


After the column has dried for 24 hours, it's time to add the outer labelum
to the center of my orchid. To do so, I've rolled out my gum paste and have
cut it with an orchid center cutter. It's a very specific cutter that has
lots of little shapes on the edge of it. In order to wrap it though around
my column, I need to widen it. So I take my rolling pin. I'm going to widen
my shape so it's at least an inch, if not almost two inches wide.

Now a labelum on a Cymbidium orchid is very, very frilled, so to get that
look I use a ball tool. I'm going to take my ball tool and working back and
forth around my shape, I'm going to frill the edge and give it lots of
interest. Now when I'm working with the ball tool, first I want to make
sure that I'm working directly on the edge, not on the inside of my piece.
I work right on the edge, and I also want to make sure to work back and
forth. It's really a back and forth motion. It's not a stabbing motion.
It's a back and forth motion that's going to give me all of those frills.
So working back and forth all the way around.

Then I'm ready to add my dry column. I take my dry column and line up the
bottom edges. And I need to attach a tiny bit of glue to my paint brush and
add a little tiny bit of glue. Now I can take my piece and wrap it around.
I'm going to wrap each piece around one side, and then I'm going to fold
over the other side, and I can make sure to pinch around the base. If my
fingers start to stick, I'll dip them in a little bit of powdered sugar.
And I'm going to make sure at the very base that the labelum is all the way
wrapped around the center column.

Now when I go to dry it, I want this piece to be nice and open, and
basically it's spilling down towards me. So when I put it into my block, I
want to make sure it's at a good angle, and I see all of this frilliness.
That part is going to have to dry for 24 hours before we add our petals.