Sequins on a cake can be a nice effect, but the ones that I’ve seen are either made with gelatin, which I don’t like, or they just don’t look realistic.
Making edible sequins isn’t too difficult, but it’s definitely time-consuming. The final effect is worth it, though!
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How to make the gumpaste sequins.
I needed some sugar sequins to use on a cake recently, so I got out the good old piping tips.
I know that there’s a method of making sequins out of gelatin, but I REALLY hate jello, and I wanted them to be opaque, not clear.
I’m also not a fan of working with sheets of flappy stuff and trying to punch holes out of them.
So I rolled out some gumpaste to a 7 on the pasta roller, then let it dry a little. I used number 10 and 2 piping tips for the cutters. Put the gumpaste on a piece of waxed paper and let it dry out a little.
I cut out the circles using the #10 tip. If you’re careful the circles will stay on the sheet of gumpaste, which is fine.
If the circles come out in the piping tip, do NOT cut out another one before releasing the one that’s stuck. They’re so thin it will take too long to separate them if you do a stack of them inside the tip.
Either peel the circle off of the tip end, or push it through the body of the tip to place it on the waxed paper.
When you’ve cut out your circles, go back with the number two tip and cut a tiny hole out of the middle of each one.
Release the sequins from the sheet by picking the gumpaste up and gently pulling them off of the sheet. By this time they should be relatively dried out, so they should keep their shape pretty well.
How to color the gumpaste sequins.
When the sequins dry out completely, you can dust them with luster dust by putting them in a small container and shaking some dust up with them.
Don’t try to color the gumpaste before cutting the sequins out unless you’re kneading the color into it. Painting the surface will leave you with white edges on the sequins.
If you want to do these a different way, use a 1/16″ hole punch, which you can get at craft stores.
Punch out a line of tiny holes, leaving enough space in between to go back and punch out the larger circle.
When you’re done with the first line go back and center a regular hole punch over the tiny holes, then punch out the larger circles.
Doing it that way may not be any faster than punching them out with the piping tips, you’ll have to experiment to see what works best for you.
