“It was an HGTV show that provided the inspiration for this cake, an interior designer transformed
an old dresser with the addition of some decoupage roses,” notes Rebekah. “I thought the technique
would translate perfectly to cake and provide a wonderful alternative to hand-painting.” This beautiful
tutorial from artist of excellence Rebekah Wilbur is surprisingly simple and wonderfully effective.

Components:

Printed Wafer Paper (see below)
Clean paintbrush
Ethyl Alcohol or Everclear
Small Bowl
Scissors
Glaze (optional)

Step 1: Cover cake tiers with Satin Ice fondant at least 12 hours in advance and allow to firm-up
overnight. The surface should be dry to the touch, this will allow for easier application and clean-up and
will prevent cracking.

Step 2: Source some large painted-style flowers to print onto wafer paper. I located some lovely designs
on Adobe Stock Images and was able to convert the images to JPG files in photoshop. I then blew up the
images to letter size and printed them with edible ink onto wafer paper.
Rebekah Notes: You need to make sure that you use high-resolution images and that the flowers are
large enough to cut out easily and completely.

Step 3: Carefully cut out the large flowers using some scissors, I like to roughly cut around the designs
first, coloring  to remove excess wafer paper and then cut out the flowers more intricately, I find this prevents any
tearing.

Rebekah Notes: It helps to lay out the flowers and roughly map-out the design onto your cake tiers. It’s
nice if some of the flowers overlap the edges and go from one tier onto the next.
Step 4: Using a clean brush, flip the cut-out flowers over, so that the shiny presentation side is down,
and coat the back of the design with clear alcohol.
Rebekah notes: You should make sure that the entire flower is fairly saturated, but not soaked.

Step 5: Carefully transfer the design to the cake, pressing down the flower and smoothing out the
design. You can use the brush and more alcohol to fully adhere the flower to the cake.

Step 6: Continue to add more flowers or butterflies using the same procedure as before. It looks better if
you overlap some of the pieces or layer the flowers.

Step 7: Clean up around the flowers using the brush dipped in the alcohol, if any of the food coloring bleeds
onto the fondant, you can remove it with a piece of paper towel dipped in the alcohol. Make sure to
remove any drips.

Step 8: Once all the pieces have been applied, allow the wafer paper to dry for several hours before
adding any further decorations.
Rebekah notes: You can use this technique on gum paste teacups to give an authentic hand-painted
look. Just spray the finished tea-cups with some edible glaze.