Claire’s Corner is my fortnightly delve into the magical world of sugarcraft and cake decorating. I’ll be showing you how to make simple decorations as well as offering hints and tips. If you have any questions you would like answered, or if there is anything that you would like to see here, please email me at: claire@claireshandmadecakes.com |
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| In case you missed anything in the previous weeks please visit the archive. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
We're about to celebrate Chinese New Year, so what better excuse to make a dragon from brush embroidery? |
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Take the cake board and cover with white sugarpaste. Leave to dry for a day or two. Draw a picture of a dragon (I searched on the internet for the dragon I was happiest with). I put this onto tracing paper. |
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Make up some royal icing. You can either do this with egg whites and icing sugar, or you can use packet royal icing, which is available in supermarkets. Colour this with red food colouring. (When colouring royal icing, you should always use liquid colours.) Make a piping bag. For this, you will need a square of greaseproof paper. Fold this in half so that you have two triangles.
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Cut this in half, so that you now have two triangles. Take the triangle in one hand, holding the paper by the right angle of the triangle. Take the corner of the longest side in your other hand. Twist this once and then bring up to the right angle, holding in place. |
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Hold the two corners together in your thumb and forefinger. Take the final corner in your other hand and wrap around the cone shape until it meets the two corners and you have cone shape. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Hold in place and the turn over the point where all three corners meet a few times until you have a secure piping bag. Then, snip off the end, place the nozzle in and add the royal icing. Turn the bag up (don't fill it too full, otherwise the icing will ooze out) and you're ready to start piping! |
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I started off piping part of the dragon's neck. You don't want to pipe too much, as the icing will start to dry and it gets harder to work with when it's dry. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Take a paintbrush (I used a 00. You want quite a fine brush) and have a little pot of water to hand. Dip the brush into the water, and then dry off slightly. Put the brush on the icing and draw the icing down. Every time you have a border, you want the brush embroidery to go inside the border. |
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You now need to repeat the brush embroidery and piping in stages, not doing too much in one go. |
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I didn't trace the dragon, although you can do that with a needle, or a scribing tool. My dragon isn't central and one of its legs is a bit smaller than the others, so if you're not confident free-hand piping, then trace it first.
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Keep building this up in sections. The picture that I based my dragon on had scales, so you could add scales as well. It could be any colour you like, I thought that red would be lucky! You could also pipe 'Happy New Year' in either English or Chinese, but I thought that there wasn't quite enough room. |
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Don’t forget to send me pictures of your creations and come back soon for the next edition of Claire’s Corner. |
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