Have you ever tried to decorate a cake with sugar flowers, candy, or chocolate? If you have, you’ll know that it can be very difficult to get your decorations to stick to the frosting on your bake.
There’s nothing worse than watching your carefully-placed decorations slip out of position or fall off the cake entirely, especially when the cake is for a special occasion.
A lot of people recommend simply using water to melt sugar flowers to the top of the cake. This works for sugar flowers because they get sticky when exposed to water, but it won’t work with other decorations that aren’t made of sugar, such as chocolate.
If you want a foolproof method of securing decorations onto any cake you make, you need to learn how to make edible glue. Luckily, we have the easiest edible glue recipe ever, and we’re going to share it with you today!
Edible Glue Recipe
Making edible glue using this recipe is quick and easy. It only takes 5 minutes in total, and you can use it to stick any decoration onto your cake.
You will need:
A container for storage
Tylose powder or CMC (¼ tsp)
Boiled water (⅓ cup)
The Method
Add your Tylose powder or CMC to your container and pour in the water. While you should boil the water before adding it, you should also allow it to cool slightly first.
Stir the powder and water together, or if your container has a lid, shake it to combine.
Now all the work is done. You just need to leave the mixture for 4 hours (or, ideally, overnight) for the desired consistency to be achieved. Make sure the glue has reached room temperature before you use it.
You can keep your edible glue in the refrigerator for up to a month.
Decorating With Edible Glue
If you follow our recipe for edible glue, you’ll see how easy and stress-free the process is. However, if you don’t use your edible glue correctly, you might not achieve the results you’ve been looking for.
Here’s how to decorate with edible glue for the best results:
1. Use Moderation
Edible glue really is one of those things where less is more. It might be tempting to use more glue if you want your creations to stick really firmly to the top of your cake, but using too much glue will actually have the opposite effect.
If you use more glue than is needed, you might end up with a visible mess around your decorations, and you will also compromise its sticking power.
That’s because the glue will start to dissolve into the gumpaste or fondant and make it weaker.
You only need to put a small amount of glue onto a brush and gently brush it onto the decoration you want to stick down.
Remember that it’s easy to add more glue if necessary, but you won’t be able to remove the glue once it’s been used.
2. Don’t Brush Both Surfaces
Another common mistake we see a lot of bakers make is brushing both the surface of the cake and the bottom of the decoration they’re sticking down.
Similarly, for gumpaste flowers, we’ve seen people brush the wire as well as the gumpaste.
Again, this comes down to the rule of less is more. If you brush both surfaces, you could end up with messy results. Instead, you should brush only one surface before sticking the decoration in place.
3. Allow Drying Time
You need to wait for the glue to be slightly tacky before you use it to stick down any decorations. This applies to all decorative tasks, including sticking sugar flowers onto fondant or making gumpaste flowers.
For example, if you’re making gumpaste flowers, you need to use a small amount of glue and apply it gently onto the wire, which should be covered with paper. Get rid of extra glue if necessary, and then carefully place the wire in your petal or leaf.
Remember, the glue needs to be tacky before you can use it to stick the wire into the gumpaste because otherwise, your leaves and petals will fall off.
If you’re working with fantasy gumpaste flowers, just stick the degrees down with a small, pea-sized amount of glue.
Final Thoughts
You only need two ingredients to make edible glue: Tylose powder or CMC, and boiled water that has been left to cool a little before using.
Once you have your ingredients, it’s a simple matter of mixing them together by shaking or stirring and letting the mixture reach room temperature before refrigerating for up to a month.
Remember, less is more when working with edible glue, and you need to let the glue dry slightly, so it becomes tacky enough to stick securely before using it to place any decorations.
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