Painted Roses on Fondant

Over the last few posts I have been showing you how I made the chocolate sponge and covered it with fondant icing for my little sister's birthday cake. I saw this really simple little trick of how to paint roses on fondant icing on pinterest ages ago and could not wait to give it a try. I went for a more Cath Kidston look for my cake (its more my sister's style) but check out the cake blog to see a sharper version.

To start with you will need a cake that has been covered with fondant, pink and green gel food colouring, elastic bands, kitchen towel and a bunch of celery that is still attached at the base (I know it sounds strange - bear with me). 

Begin by wrapping elastic bands around your bunch a celery and then using a sharp knife cut the bottom of the bunch off so that it looks like this:

Water your food colouring down as much as your like. The more watery it is the more vintagey your roses will turn out, if you go for a thicker food colouring the roses will come out sharper. Using your celery as a stamp, dip the end into the food colouring ensuring that all the stamp is covered in colouring. Then just briefly touch the stamp on some kitchen towel to remove some of the excess before stamping the cake. Rock the celery back and forth a bit to ensure that the whole pattern is transferred. 

Interlink two celery stalks and keep them together using an elastic band to make the leaf stamp and then stamp as above using green food colouring. You can then use a single celery stalk to add any extra petals or leaves.

Allow the food colouring to dry, before sticking your candles on and serving the cake up:

Happy baking xxx