How to Make Edible Glue for Cake Decorating

Edible glue is an essential tool for any cake decorator. It's what you use to stick sugar flowers onto cakes; to fix arms and legs onto sugarpaste animals and to stick any sort of decorations onto fondant-covered cakes.

You can buy edible glue in little pots which can cost anywhere between £2-£3, or sometimes you can get them for £1 from a show like Cake International, which is coming up at the end of this month. I quite like this one from Culpitt, a reputable brand, which you can buy from Amazon from £2.05.

A little does go a fairly long way and the little pots usually come with a brush in the lid which is handy, but after a while they will dry up, and if you are doing a lot of cake decorating, it can get expensive.

So did you know that you can actually make your own edible glue very easily? Simply mix one part CMC powder to 20 parts water and that's it. You can get 100g of CMC powder for about £5 and that will last you a very long time - and you can also use the powder to make Mexican paste to use for modelling (explained if you click on the link).

It's best not to use the glue right away - you can if you need to, but it is quite runny, and benefits from a few hours to set a little. You can keep it in the fridge for quite a while; use a paintbrush or fine makeup brush to dip in to the glue and apply. It's as simple as that!