Crossword Competition
Enter our competition for your chance to win this
bundle of flower cutters and products from
FMM Sugarcraft, worth £85!Email your answers to
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Closing Date: 31st AugustWIN!
Wire gauge
Make sure you use the correct thickness
of wire for your flowers and leaves so that
they stay covered with gum paste and don’t
poke out. The higher the gauge number, the
thicker the wire is. 22 or 24 gauge wire is for
a medium sized flower; wires go up to 30 for
very fine, small leaves and down to 18 to hold
large, heavy flowers.Use a Styrofoam dome for your top floral
arrangement
Place the dome on a cake board that is smaller than
the top tier of your cake and cover it with sugarpaste.
Wired flowers can be inserted directly into it as it can
be easily removed as a whole piece and will not touch
your cake.Wrap wires in floral tape
Not only does floral tape hold
your wired flowers together, it
prevents the lead content of
the wire getting into the cake.
Wires are not food safe and tape
provides an extra barrier.Whether you use sugar flowers or fresh flowers, it is important to ensure that items that are not food safe don’t come into
contact with the cake. Buttercream vs GanachePlace covered wires into a posy pick, straw or coffee stirrer
Again, floral tape is not food safe and shouldn’t have direct content with the
cake. You can buy posy picks in different sizes or cut straws or coffee stirrers
to the right size.
To ensure your flower sprays don’t move inside the posy picks, wrap the
spray in more floral tape until snug. Or for straws, royal icing is often piped
inside just before adding the wire and left to set in place.Flower Spray Safety
Fresh flowers
Not all flowers are edible and
therefore shouldn’t be placed
directly on a cake. Use the same
method as sugar flowers but
ensure the flowers do not directly
contact a part of the cake that will
be eaten.DOWN
1 Indiana’s state flower (5)
2 A trumpet shaped flower that
signals the start of Spring (8)
3 A fragrant shrub used to flavour
tea (7)
5 Button-hole flower (9)
7 Found in the woods and named
after an item that rings (8)
11 Shares its name for the
coloured part of the eye (4)UP
4 An exotic plant with unusually
shaped flowers of vivid colours
(6)
6 Small flowers that are used to
make a chain (5)
8 A woody climbing plant that the
‘Desperate Housewives’ lane is
named after (8)
9 Often given to your valentine (4)
10 Also a girl’s name (4)
12 A tall flower that is named
after the star at the centre of our
solar system (9)
13 Flowers of a fruit tree (7)