How to Make Magnolia Petals | Sugar Flowers

Watch more How to Make Simple Sugar Paste Flowers videos:

Learn how to make magnolia sugar paste flower petals from cake designer Amy Noelle in this Howcast cake decorating tutorial, part 2 of a 3-part series.


In order to create the petals for a magnolia flower, I need to different
size cutters. I like to use circle cutters for this flower. I have one
that's an inch in diameter and another one that's an inch and a quarter in
diameter. I rolled out my gum paste, and I've cut a few of each sizes. I'll
need four of each size petal. The technique that I use to create each pedal
is exactly the same. I start with my circle of gum paste, and I'm going to
hold it in between my two fingers, inserting a wire into each one. Each of
the petals is individually wired to give me maximum flexibility when I put
the flower together. I'll brush off the extra glue that's on my hand so
that it doesn't become an icky, sticky mess.

I'm going to insert my wire into the gum paste just about an eighth of an
inch. It doesn't have to go in very far. That's about half the width of my
pinky, just a little tiny bit. Then in order to create super thin petals,
I'll dip my fingers into powdered sugar, and I'm going to pinch the edges,
tuck the edges as if I'm snapping. I'm going to pinch and roll my first
finger and my thumb all the way around the edge of my petal. This will
allow my petal size to be distorted and also to create a little bit more
interest as I look at my petal edge.

I turn it upside down, and I want to add a little bit of veining to my
petals. Again, I'm going to load my fingertips up with powdered sugar and
press. I'll start by pressing the edges into my veiner. Now this veiner was
created from a rose petal. We took a rose petal and pushed it into food
grade silicone. Now if you don't have the ability to make your own, you can
purchase veiners from a craft store or a baking supply store.

Now one thing I want to make sure, a magnolia petal is not actually round
so I'm going to push the tip of the petal up and push it into kind of like
a little tip, so it's almost it's not quite sharp, but it does have a
little bit of a tip at the end. And then I can push in the middle just to
make sure the whole entire piece is veined. I can pull it away from my
veiner and turn it over in my hands. You can see all of the texture that
we've put onto our sugar petal.

Now if I were to leave this in my hand to dry, it would dry flat, and
petals in nature are not flat at all. So I have a tray of spoons here. I'm
going to rest my flower into one of the spoons and pushing it, and that
will allow it to dry so that it's cupped both front and back and right and
left. When I create my sugar magnolia petals, I need to have four from this
small size and four large petals The technique that I use for each petal is
exactly the same. I'll let them all dry overnight before I go to assemble.