Gum Paste Hibiscus Flower Tutorial

This was my second attempt at making gum paste hibiscus flowers and I must say, I was quite happy with the way the flower turned out. 

I bought the hibiscus petal cutter quite a while back but never tried making one until recently when I designed a Hawaiian birthday cake. And now, I made the gum paste hibiscus for a tropical beach wedding cake. 

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How to Make Gum Paste Hibiscus Flower

Main supplies for gum paste hibiscus flower:

• Gumpaste - I used Satin Ice gum paste in white. 
• Hibiscus petal cutter
• Sepal/Calyx cutter - I did not have one for hibiscus flower so used a rose calyx cutter instead.
• Petal viener - Again, I did not have a specific veiner for the hibiscus petals. Instead, I used my hydrangea petal veiner.
• Floral wire - I used 22 gauge wire for each petal as well as the pistil.
• Artificial floral sigma and stamen - I used 2 types of stamen, gold-colored ones for the sigma and beige ones for the flower stamen.  
• Green petal dust - I used Rose Leaf petal dust for the sepal.
• Floral tape - I used green floral tape to tape all the petals and the pistil in place and a bit of white tape for the pistil.
• Fondant glue

And this was how I made the flowers:

Making the petals

• I used a hibiscus petal cutter to cut the petals. Unlike other flowers, I rolled the gum paste rather thick. 

• And then, using my small rolling pin, I rolled the the sides of the petal thin.

• And then, I used my petal cutter to re cut the petals.

• By now, the rounded large end of the petal is thin but the long narrow end remains thick. The thickness is necessary as the petals need to be wired individually.

• Next is to frill the petals. For this I used a ball tool. I started with the center. I thinned the center in a circular motion. 

• Followed by the sides until thin and slightly frilly. 

• For the veining of the petal,  I used my hydrangea petal veiner. It was large enough for my gum paste hibiscus petals and so was perfect to create the veins.

• And when imprinting the veins, I only pressed the wider end of the petals and made sure the narrow end is not flattened.

• This was how the gum paste hibiscus petal looked like after veining.

• Next was wiring the petals. I used gauge 22 wire, applied some fondant glue to it and inserted about 1.5cm of it into the narrow end of the petal as shown.

• And then, using my small rolling pin, I thinned the sides of the of the petal where the wire was inserted.14

• I then left the petals to set and dry in a flower former until they are completely dry. 

Making the pistil

• Once the petals were done, I did the center of the gum paste hibiscus. The center is known as pistil and the upper part of the pistil has sigma and stamen. For the pistil, I used gauge 22 wire, and for the stamen and sigma, I used 2 different types of artificial stamen.  
• The ones shown below formed the sigma.

• I grouped them together and attached them to the wire using a white floral tape.

• Next, I rolled a thin strip of gum paste, applied fondant glue to the wire, placed it right in the center of the strip and rolled it up.

• I rolled the pistil until the gum paste was smooth and the pistil thin.

• For the stamen, I used flat, beige colored artificial stamens. I cut them the stamens short into individual pieces as shown.

• And then, I dipped each stamen lightly into fondant glue and poked them into the top part of the pistil to form as stamens.

• Once done, I left all the components of the flower to set and dry completely before assembling them into a flower.

Assembling the flower

• To assemble the gum paste hibiscus flower, I arranged the petals around the pistil and secured them in place with green floral tape. 

• This was how the flower looked like after taping. 

Making the calyx

• The next process was attaching the sepal for the flower. For this, I used a rose calyx cutter. I rolled a piece of white gum paste thin, cut out the sepal, and made a small cut on one side of it. 

• I then attached it to the flower with some fondant glue. 

• And then, I rolled another piece of gum paste and cut out the following shape.

• I attached it to the gum paste hibiscus to complete the hibiscus sepal.

• And this was how the flower looked like upon its sepal being completed. 

• The final step in making this flower was dusting the sepal. Since I wanted to make white hibiscus, I did not dust the petals. Had I wanted a different color for the petals, I would have dusted them before attaching the sepal.
• For the sepal, I used rose-leaf green petal dust.

• In dusting the sepal, I was careful not to spill the color over on the petals. 

And that was it for making a gum paste hibiscus. Here was how the flower looked like on my tropical beach wedding cake (Click here to see how I made the rest of the cake).

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Please leave your thoughts in the comments box below. 

Happy decorating 🙂