A Gum Paste Umbrella

Ever since I bought that 4" hemisphere pan by Fat Daddio's to make the baseball cake, I've been wanting to find other things to do with it. Adapting instructions in Wilton's Tiered Cakes book for a much larger version, I made this little umbrella that would be perfect for a shower cake (or, if in black, a Gashlycrumb Tinies cake; yes, I'm planning ahead for Halloween). All you'll need is gum paste in whatever color you want, a 9" fondant roller with purple 1/8" rings, a gum paste storage board to roll the gum paste out on, a sharp knife, a 4" pan and a 4" hemisphere pan (you could adjust the size, of course), a #2 or #3 round tip on a piping bag filled with royal icing to pipe the spokes, a round cutter (like the medium one from the Wilton Round Cut-Outs set), a dusting pouch filled with a 50/50 mix of powdered sugar and cornstarch, a container of gum glue adhesive (a pinch of gum paste dissolved in a tablespoon of water), and a lollipop stick (or whatever size stick is appropriate for the size of umbrella you're making; you could use a wooden dowel wrapped in gum paste, for example). Start by dusting the back side of the storage board, and rolling out gum paste 1/8" thick:

 Move the gum paste to your counter or a cutting board, place the pan on it, and run a knife around the edge of the pan.

 Use the round cutter to cut away football-shaped pieces around the edge…

…until you've gone all the way around.

 Dust the outside of the hemisphere pan generously with the dusting pouch…

 …and drape the gum paste piece over it. Use your hand to conform it to the pan.

 Allow it to dry for a day or so. Larger umbrellas will take longer.

 Find the approximate center, and make a tiny mark; I used the end of a #2 piping tip.

 I piped the spokes with a #3 tip, starting from that mark…

…and radiating out to each point.

 To make some sort of ferrule for the center, I rolled a tiny ball of gum paste and flattened it slightly between my thumb and index finger. I piped a dot of royal icing on one side…

 …and placed it over the center where the spokes meet.

To attach the lollipop stick, I rolled a small ball of gum paste, dipped one end of the stick into gum glue adhesive…

…then stuck it into the ball of gum paste, which I flattened slightly. 

 I placed the hemisphere pan into the round pan…

 …and lined it with a paper towel to stabilize the umbrella, which I placed into it.

 I dipped the end of the flattened ball of gum paste into the gum glue adhesive…

 …and placed it in the center of the inverted umbrella.

Nothing more to do with it than let it dry overnight, and bake a cake to stick it on! Now to think of more things to do with this hemisphere pan…

A Baseball-shaped Cake

I'm working on a baseball-themed cake and wanted to incorporate an actual baseball (it's only a half-ball because in the end it'll look like it's stuck in the grass). When I was making the main part of the cake, I set aside some batter to make this ball. Here is the pan (or rather, pans) I used:

On the left is a 4" pan and on the right is a 4" hemisphere pan, both by Fat Daddio's. These are some tremendously sturdy pans; they weigh a ton! And, of course, each of these pans comes in a variety of sizes. I greased and floured the hemisphere pan and filled it about halfway (roughly half a cup), then dropped it into the 4" pan and let it bake about 15 minutes (whenever the toothpick came out clean-ish). 

 The cake came out easily with a firm "whack":

 I cut off the crown…

 and then gave it a buttercream undercoating.

 I rolled out a piece of fondant, somewhere around 1/8" thick:

 I laid the fondant over the hemisphere and smoothed it down. The cake was too small to use a fondant smoother; my hands worked just as well.

 It was also too small to cut away the slack with a pizza cutter; I used a paring knife…

 …and smoothed the edges under the cake a little more tightly by hand.

 To pipe the stitching, I needed a red food-safe marker (I like AmeriColor Gourmet Writers), thinned royal icing colored with AmeriColor's Super Red in a bag fitted with a round #3 tip, and a dusting pouch filled with a 50/50 mix of powdered sugar and cornstarch.

 I used the marker to make dots for guidelines. Without these, I guarantee the final result would be uneven.

 Starting in the middle of the ball, I piped a series of upside-down V's. Any time a peak occurred, I touched a fingertip to the dusting pouch and gently tapped it down.

 And here's the finished baseball cake. Obviously, you could use a hemisphere pan to create anything ball-shaped; I'm sure I'll press it into service again soon.

You can see it peeking out from behind a fondant pennant on the final cake in this shot: