How to Make an Orchid Center Column | Sugar Flowers

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Learn how to make an orchid sugar paste flower center column from cake designer Amy Noelle in this Howcast cake decorating tutorial, part 1 of a 5-part series.


There are lots of varieties of orchids. However, Cymbidium orchids are my
favorite, and I'd like to show you how to create them in sugar.

It starts with the center column. Let's begin there. I begin with a one
gram piece of gum paste that I'm going to knead up and roll into a sausage
shape. I roll first into a ball and then right into a sausage shape. My
shape should be about an inch in length. Each one of these boxes on my mat
is about an inch in length. I'm going to insert a wire into my sausage
shape.

But in order to make sure that it sticks, I've hooked the wire, bent over
the very top of it and hooked it. I'll dip it into a little bit of edible
glue and brush off the excess. I can insert it into my sausage shape. And
I'm going to roll it again between my hands so it becomes about an inch and
a half in length, so about a box and a half.

Now, when you look at an orchid column, it has what, to me, look like
wings. So I take tweezers, and I'm going to pinch on either side of the
center and pinch out some wings. And then I'll take my fingers and actually
further thin them out. So it almost looks like a cobra, almost like a
snake.

I'm going to take and bend and fold over the center. Bend it over my thumb.
Then I'm just going to add a little teeny, tiny indentation. My indentation
comes from a number five pastry tip. This is just to make it look a little
bit more realistic. I just push in and give it a little bit of a head.

Now this column is going to sit and dry overnight for 24 hours before I add
the next piece of my center.