Tylo powder is a synthetic (man made) equivalent of gum tragacanth. It is cheaper than gum-trag and just as simple to use. In the cake decorating world it has several uses, and is considered to be an essential item in your cake decorating toolkit.
You can use Tylo powder to make your own edible glue, you can turn sugarpaste into modeling paste, and you can use it to make flowerpaste too. Here are a few hints and tips on how to get the best from your Tylo powder.
What are the different pastes?Sugarpaste is used for covering cakes, it is fairly soft and does not dry hard. We use BFP Covapaste.
Modelling Paste
Modelling paste can be purchased ready-made. However, making your own Modelling paste is very easy and cost effective, there are two ways you can do it.
1. Kneading Tylo powder into sugarpaste
Simply knead in approximately a half teaspoon of Tylo powder to 250g of sugar paste. Adding more Tylo powder gives a firmer paste
that dries harder but is more inclined to crack while working. If you find this happens, simply knead in a little bit of white fat
(Trex/Crisco) and use white fat on your hands and tools to help prevent sticking.
2. Mixing flowerpaste into sugarpaste
Modelling paste can also be made by mixing 50/50 flowerpaste with sugarpaste. The quantities do not have to be
exact, the more flowerpaste you add the more elasticity your modelling paste will have, experiment to find what works best for the
project you are working on.
Flowerpaste is a fine paste used for making sugar flowers and fine detailed modelling. One of it's best features is it can be rolled extremely thinly, making it great for petals, leaves and clothing on modelled people. Instructions for making your own flower paste is in this App.
Tylo Glue
Never buy Edible glue again! Tylo glue is used for many different things when creating models and flowers in sugar. It is made quite simply by mixing a quarter of a teaspoon of Tylo powder with approx 50ml of water.
Use a clean jar or something with a lid that you can store it in. When you put the powder into the water, it will create a horrible looking lumpy mixture! Leave the lumpy mixture overnight and you will find a wonderful thick glue in the morning, give it a good shake and it's reay to use.
We would recommend that you store it in the container that you mix it in, and when you want to use it, pour a little into a smaller container that you will dip your paintbrush into - this will last a few weeks - if it goes cloudy throw it away!
The main jar can be stored for many weeks in a cool place, it doesn't have to be the fridge, but this is OK too. If it's too thick, add a little more water and give it a shake.
Gunge
‘Gunge’ is the term we use to describe a very thick glue-paste made from the paste you are using let down with a small amount of Tylo glue.
This is used for a stronger hold, usually when fixing fully dried pieces of paste together. The main advantage of ‘gunge’ is that it can be an exact colour match of the paste you are using for your creation.
So as you can see, Tylo Powder has many uses and should be in every cake decorators kitchen!. If you haven't tried this before, buy one of our tester packs, and give it a go!