Jan Berry shows us how to create the hydrangea, a fabulous filler that comes in many shades from pinks to blue, white to autumnal colours of deep red to maroons/purples and the elderberry, also invaluable as a filler with shades varying from green through to nearly black, depending on the season.
Jan Berry is a sugar floral expert, a Cake International Judge and also a qualified chef. Jan’s love of gardening led her to a career in sugarcraft, we chat to Jan about her passions.
Cake Facts:
Level –beginner
Time to Make – 4 hours – depending on the size!
Retail Price – £300
Exploring Base Colours and Dusts by Jan Berry
So, you have the situation that you have been asked for some flowers for a cake, and for example, a pink hydrangea, do you start your hydrangea with white paste, pink paste or even green paste?
Each base colour will give you a different finish so never be frightened of experimenting, roll a little bit of coloured paste and try different dusting powders on them, making sure you do the same amount of brush strokes on each.
As you can see, I wanted to achieve an ‘end of summer’ colours, when the hydrangea has lost its vibrant colour and is starting to turn, in the photograph you can see the 3 base colours I tried – plain white paste, paste coloured with a touch of ruby and white paste with a touch of gooseberry.
The dusting powders used were the ones I used in the tutorial, however, if you look, on the white paste it looks more vibrant and cleaner, but is that the colour nature is? Yes it is in the height of summer, but not when the seasons are starting to change. The next piece of paste is the pink, yes that is still vibrant in places, however, you can start to see the changes in the colours, and finally the green paste, this is now showing that change you are looking for, it’s no longer that new start to its life, it’s that aged colour, when the colour is finally decreasing and you’re left with autumnal browns.
Hydrangea are not the only bract / flowers that do this, Calla lilies also have many colours in them, so before you make, just have an experiment with your base colours!
Hydrangea
