Observation A: It's very soft and pliable. I mean, to roll it out takes almost no pressure whatsoever. It's the purest white I've ever seen. It's possible I didn't cook it long enough but I don't think so. I'll have to try a second batch to kow for sure.
Now when I kneaded it together it was much the same as fondant or gumpaste and I had to work in extra cornstarch just like you would work extra powdered sugar in to the other two. The interesting thing is it doesn't appear to firm up at all. I found that due to it's extremely soft texture I had to made pretty severe adjustments to how think I rolled something out and the size of the cutter I was using.
Observation B: it will roll out to near transparency. After deciding to roll it out thicker than I would normally roll out any paste for using cutters, I used my second to smallest heart cutter to see how it rolled out from there. I used a small wooden rolling stick and gently, VERY gently, rolled out the form. It easily tripled the size of the cut out and was rice paper thin. It was much more difficult to curl the edges however. I put that in a former to dry so I could see it today.
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| second view of calla |
Observation C: doesn't need much moisture to stick together. It took next to no water/gum glue or any other moist adhesive to get parts to stick together. The next form I cut was a small calla lilly because they are easy to form and dry. Again, I rolledthe dough thicker but this tme I only really elongated the "tip" and tried not to thin the petal too much just to see how a thicker petal would dry. I found that I also needed to dust the former with cornstarch so that it would release.
Observation D: shapes very easily. Now I decided to make a little figurine to see how easy it shaped and how long a more thick, solid piece would take to dry since it claims 24 hours. I made a number "1" and put a few little frills on it. It seemed appropriate as my first tests.
This morning, just 12 hours later, I find that the thinner shaped pieces are pretty set, very light and pretty durable. I dusted the one with petal dust to see how it takes powdered colors. I plan to paint the number figurine with oils since it is supposed to take those well.
I decided to look around last night and see how many different recipes there are and what kind of following CP has and it's pretty widely used. There are a few big names that are well known for it. I found two more recipes and the few differences are include cold cream (in both) and white liquid tempra paint in the other. I even found one that uses glycerin. The amounts of each ingredient are pretty similar so I'm debating if trying the other batches is worth it.
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| heart petal with red velvet petal dust |
The one type of feedback I haven't found is how the consistency should feel, how workable it should be and how long a batch should last before it's too old to use.
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| figurine and calla |
Hopefully you can see the color difference between the number one and the flower. The flower is so thin you can see through it while the thicker piece seems a bit tinted. I read that with white paint you get a "true" porcelain look.
The flower was so light I couldn't believe it. I must have dropped it about three times trying to get a picture and it never once cracked. However it hasn't had it's full 24 set up time so it may be much more fragile after it's truly set.
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