Learn how to make miniature gum paste plates, saucers, and cake stands with this cake decorating tutorial. Use these darling miniature plates and cake stands (along with the other tutorials in the series) to make utterly charming tea party cupcake toppers.
I love cake stands. I love miniature things. And I really, really love the miniature cake stands I made for the halloween tea party cupcake toppers.
Today I'm going to show you how to make the cake stands and the plates for the tea party cupcake toppers.
How to Make Miniature Gum Paste Cake Stands:
The first step is to cut out the top of the cake stands. I don't have a set of circle cutters that's as small as I needed, but I do have quite a collection of icing tips. And the "wrong" side of the icing tips make fabulous tiny circle cutters.
They come in just the right range of sizes. The largest two make fabulous tops for cake stands, the middle size makes the perfect dinner plate, and the smallest (which is a normal tip size, not a mini one) makes ideal circles for making tea saucers.
To make the tiny gumpaste cake stands, cut out the gumpaste circles and let dry for several hours. Once they've hardened, form the cake stand base (any shape you want, really, but I like mine to be wider at the bottom to give the stands more stability) and use a bit of vodka to glue the gumpaste disc on top of the cake stand base. Let dry, and paint to fit your theme.
Here are some miniature gum paste cake stands I made as part of a cake topper for the Fall Gnome Birthday Party.
And of course, the very first ones I ever made for my daughter's Under the Sea Tea Party birthday (before I even started blogging).
How to Make Miniature Gum Paste Plates and Saucers
Making the plates and saucers for tea party cupcakes starts the exact same way as making the gum paste cake stands: cutting small circles out of gumpaste.
I've used a variety of items to make an indent to make the gumpaste circles look more plate-like. A coupler was used here.
Or sometimes one of the icing tips is just the right size. Look around at what you have. I've used marker lids and toys before to make just the right impression.
If you make the indentation in the gumpaste while it's sitting on a bit of foam (I just use the basic Wilton gum paste shaping foam), you'll even get a nice, lifted edge to the rim of the plate.
Let dry, and decorate. Don't worry if it doesn't look perfect. Once you put some tiny cookies and forks and spoons on the plates, it'll look great.