Mexican paste is great for making fine flower petals. This is my favourite paste for making sugar flowers, it has a generous drying time, dries hard and is humidity resistant once dry. It’s fast to make, cheap, super reliable and lets me roll paper thin petals for flowers. *Special note: Different brands of Tylose/CMC are very different. …
The pastillage recipe after the photos is extremely simple and cheap to make. I’ve found it fairly easy and pretty reliable. The recipe is essentially an old fashioned version of pastillage. I have been using this recipe for years to create everything from sugar paste flowers to simple figurines. Best of all it is gluten free and has just three ingredients and water, all of which you can get at nearly any supermarket. This is perfect for structural pieces like the soles and heels of sugar shoes, wired centres for sugar flowers or very thin structural decorations.