Hand Painted Cakes

These days I really don't get much opportunity to One Stroke as much as I'd like to but I keep promising myself that I'll get back to it.

I could be more disciplined when I was teaching as I got to paint at least once a week!  The only thing I really get to paint right now are walls....and cakes of course.

Here is a little package cake that I did at Christmas.  I painted tiny red rosebuds on it like 'wrapping paper' and finished it with tiny stems and leaves in pale green.

The next cake is a 'candle cake' which I painted with silver scrolls using real silver dust and a #2 liner brush. Of course you have to remember to keep two sets of brushes, one that you would use for your usual crafting and acrylic paints and the other that you would use for cakes and edibles.

Lastly here we have a five tiered wedding cake that was first decorated with one stroke vines and leaves in sage and sunflower yellow to produce a two tone effect, not quite One Stroke, but almost.  

Then I placed hand made sugar flowers (peach roses and lilacs) and painted large sunflower type leaves over the top.

The One Stroke technique takes a little mastering when using edible food colours, painting on fondant and painting vertically in 'steps', but when it's done, it's amazingly fulfilling.

Sugar is abrasive and it ruins your brushes quickly, alas!  On the bright side, so long as you can find the correct flat brushes, they don't have to be traditional One Stroke brushes, simple Walmart or Dollar Store brushes will do.

My Own One Stroke Cake Stand

I painted that cake stand!  Yay!

A very fun evening at the Lou Hanson Studio just before Christmas with a whole bunch of cake decorating friends.  This was cake related, but a little departure from our 'norm'.  What a lot of fun.

Although this is actually pink rosebuds it matched the Christmas cake well and many people thought that it was a perfect compliment to the burgundy flowers and berries on this cake.  Go figure.

Painted Cake

Part Painted and partly sugar flowers.  Vines using One Stroke techniques.

Sunflower Painted Cake

Cake painted with One Stroke Techniques - Sunflowers with edible paints.  If you are interested in learning this technique visit the Canadian Cake Decorators Guild website.  It is not difficult to paint on fondant if you have learned the One Stroke technique and are comfortable with it.  However, having a well applied fondant is something that can be a little tricky and is well worth learning to do properly before launching into it's use.

Remember:  Do not use your normal painting brushes to paint on cakes, you must use NEW brushes, first sterilized by being dipped in alcohol.  Obviously you can't use floating medium or any of the Folk Art paints.  You must always use edible paints!

Rose Painted Cake

Cake painted with edible paints using One Stroke techniques.  The whole process is a little more involved than when painting on a surface, it is impossible to remove any mistakes, but the overall look of the cake when finished makes it all worth while.  Finding the 'paints' that suit your style takes a while, but it's worth trying out a few edible mediums before you settle on the one you like.  The Canadian Cake Decorators Guild offer Painting on Cakes classes and it is well worth considering before painting on tiered wedding cakes.  It is also worth considering taking a fondant course so that your fondant is evenly and properly smooth and well applied to give you a good base on which to paint.  A Wilton Course 3 is offered  both at the Canadian Cake Decorators Guild and some Michaels and Bulk Barn stores.   How about start with cookies first?  Fondant is available at the Bulk Barn or Michaels Craft Stores and is easy to work with if you follow the instructions.  You can use a smear of  buttercream or piping gel (also available from these stores) otherwise the fondant will not stick to the cookie.  You can also buy fondant sheets that are very thin, smooth sheets of fondant ideal for painting or printing on.  Simply paint your picture (with edible paints of course) then apply it to your cake covered with buttercream or fondant.   For more information visit Kopy Kake.Royal icing can also be used to cover your cookie, but remember to allow a couple of days between applying the icing and applying the paint because otherwise your paint will 'blur' as it is absorbed into the icing.