How to make roses out of fondant

Ever wondered how to make a fondant rose?  Fondant roses are easy to make with this step by step tutorial that doesn't use any special cutters or equipment.

These simple roses are easy to make, don't require a rose cutter (or even a circle cutter!).  

 I even make my gum paste roses this way, usually, because it's so quick and easy, and I don't feel like pulling out the gumpaste cutters and letting the roses dry upside down and all that rigamaroll.  This is way easier.

One fondant rose looks pretty cool, but if you put a ton of roses together, they're really something special!  I made this cake for my daughter's butterfly-themed second birthday party. If you'd like to make a cake like this covered in sugar roses, you can find my rose tower cake tutorial here.

Materials for Making Fondant Roses:

• fondant (or gum paste, or modeling chocolate)
• Spray oil (I just use the olive oil spray I have on hand for cooking)
• gel or paste food coloring (I like Americolor gel brand)

How to Make Fondant Roses:

Step 1) Pull off a small quantity of fondant.  Keep the rest of the fondant in an airtight bag while you're not using it.  Roll the lump of fondant into a ball, and then pinch it into a tear drop shape.

Step 2) Pull off another small quantity of fondant, about the same size as the teardrop.  Roll into a ball, and then flatten it against the oiled counter into a thin disk.  Make one half extra thin.  That will be the rose petal.

Step 3) Wrap your rose petal around the fondant teardrop.  This creates the center of the rose.  Be sure that the thin edge of your petal is the pretty part at the top of the rose.

Step 4) Make another petal and add it to the rose.    You could stop adding petals at this point and you'd have a lovely rose bud.

Continue adding petals to the rose until it's the size you need.  

It looks great, doesn't it?  But it's got a great big bulky mass at the bottom of the rose.  Don't worry!

Step 5) Grab the rose gently in one hand, and pinch and twist off the bulky extra fondant at the base with the other hand.  This pinches the petals of the roses together so it won't fall apart (even without any vodka or other edible "glue"), and it gets rid of that unsightly bulk.  Use that pinched off leftover fondant to create the teardrop shaped centers for the next one or two roses!

Tips for Making Fondant Roses:

• Color your fondant before forming the roses.

• Spray your counter lightly with oil to prevent the fondant from sticking to the surface.  You could also use corn starch or powdered sugar, but that dries it out, and can even affect the color.  One of those aerosol cans of cooking oil is the way to go.

• Roses look best if you use an odd number of petals:  3 for a small bud, 5 for a normal rose, 7 for a large rose.

Uses for Fondant Roses:

• Use fondant roses to decorate cakes
• or cupcakes!
• or even cookies!
• or cake pops!

Can I use this Fondant Rose Technique with Other Materials?

Yes!  I've used this technique to sculpt roses out of:

• fondant
• gum paste
• modeling chocolate
• rolled buttercream
• Even Fimo clay!

This is a rolled buttercream rose.  It's American buttercream made so thick and stiff that you can actually model with it, like fondant, but it tastes like buttercream. The technique is the same with any material you can shape and model.

And if you want it all in one gigantic pinnable image, here you go:

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