Have you seen those Instagram posts on gorgeous Korean sweet bean paste cake flowers? Yep, so have I and there’s a unique aesthetic to these cake flowers. They’re so pretty, I can’t take my eyes off the photos.
During one of my trips to Taipei, I had the opportunity to take a private lesson from a startup bakery and learned how to pipe out Korean sweet bean paste flowers.
The main characteristic of sweet bean paste flowers is, of course, the primary ingredient. Sweet bean paste is made from ground soy beans and sweetened with icing sugar, resulting in a thick dough-like texture that’s pretty firm, unlike buttercream that’s soft and creamy.
Another characteristic of sweet bean paste flowers is the colors! They are neither pastel nor vibrant like what we’re used to seeing in buttercream cake flowers. Sweet bean paste flowers are somewhat muted in color with a rustic quality.
All-natural coloring is used for this. Red = beetroot powder. Blue = butterfly pea flower powder. Yellow = pumpkin powder. With just these three main colors, you can have more color permutations.
Here, the teacher is demonstrating how to pipe out the flowers and I’m paying close attention. I have done cake decorations before (a Wilton beginner class, but that was using buttercream) and the technique is pretty much the same.
The differences, however, are:
- the metal tips used for piping out these Korean-style sweet bean paste flowers are shaped differently and have fine curves compared to normal ones.
- the sweet bean paste itself is also very stiff and it takes major hand muscles to squeeze it out smoothly out of the piping bag.
Here are display flowers that the teacher had made in another class to show me the different kinds of blooms that can be made: poinsettias, chrysanthemums, roses, daisies, lilies, peonies, acorns, cotton flowers, cherry blossoms, and some.
The lesson started at nine in the morning and I piped, and piped, and piped some more until it was past seven in the evening. It was a really long class, even though I was the only student, and it was all because I was weak sauce and my hand started cramping up, so I had to take frequent breaks in between. This wasn’t as easy as I thought!
I managed to pipe out these three different kinds of blooms (daisies, cherry blossoms, and roses) plus some leaves. By this time I was ready to call it a day and soak my hands in hot water to relax the muscles.
But it wasn’t over yet as I had to next figure out how to assemble the flowers into an aesthetically pleasing bouquet atop the strawberry shortcake that the teacher had baked. This was intense as I had just one shot to put the right bloom in the right spot.
After some deliberation, I ended up with this and as my hand had completely given way, the teacher helped me piped out the delicate tendrils and filled in some gaping spots. The finer and more delicate elements require a more precise control of strength when piping out the sweet bean paste… so I happily let the teacher helped me out with that. :P
This was a fun experience and I’m proud of the cake flowers I made. But if you were to ask me whether I’d do this again, I will say no and stick to buttercream flowers next time. I ate the cake the next day and really liked the flavor of the sweet bean paste flowers better than buttercream flowers though.
Have you tried making Korean sweet bean paste flowers before? What’s your experience like?
