SugarVeil4-pack of 3.4 oz SugarVeil Confectionery Icing

I've tried making my own. All I did was make a mess. Sugarveil is amazing, and there is no substitute for it (or, at least, none that I've found - and I've tried a LOT of recipes).A few words of advice:1. Do NOT add too much water. Even an extra tablespoon, or a couple teaspoons, might be too much. Yeah, it'll make spreading the stuff easier, make it a little less sticky and goopy, but the final product will be thin and translucent and ugly. You really have to learn the consistency, and that might take some time and practice, but once you've got it, you've got it.2. Do NOT overcook Sugarveil. Okay, that made it set faster, and it was easier to unmold, BUT it also turned the lace ivory/off-white, which was not what I was going for. Now, if you want yellowish lace, by all means, be my guest. But I was pissed at myself, so I figured I'd warn others about it.3. I wouldn't recommend saving leftover Sugarveil. I tried, and the end product just didn't set right. It sort of gelatinizes in the fridge and then you have to reheat it and maybe add more water and that screws everything up. Or at least, it did for me. Now, I usually halve the package, make a small batch, use it all, and save the other half for my next batch.Anyway, hope that helps.

First attempt turned out great. I watched several videos and read all the reviews. I measured Sugarveil and water by weight and volume, instead of measuring with cups. I also beat the mix 8 minutes because that's how long it took to get the the consistency I saw in video tutorials. I followed advice I saw to use cooking spray and a toothbrush to work the spray into the mold. I used a plastic trowel I bought at the store for a dollar, rather than the Sugarveil tool, which is too expensive in my opinion. Baked the mold on top of waxed paper on a cookie sheet for 8 minutes at 200 degrees, then let it cool in front of a small fan on low for about 10 or 15 minutes. 'Washed' my hands with cornstarch to be sure they were as dry as possible and removed the mold from the lace, facedown on parchment paper. It turned out really great! One last tip, the official Sugarveil videos say to wipe the mold with a damp cloth when you take it out of the oven, I tried to do this, but it started to stick to the cloth, so I just stopped. Not wiping the mold left a little bit of 'skin' on the edges in a couple of places, I just carefully cut it away with a sharp knife after removing the lace from the mold.

I love Sugarveil. I researched several products for making cake lace and this was the only one that said it could be used on buttercream icing. I rarely make a fondant cake, so the other products were useless to me. My first try came out really nice. (My husband and kids were impressed.) I followed the online directions carefully and put the filled mat on a cookie sheet in a warm oven to dry and had only a few imperfect sections. The pieces tasted good and were easy to apply to the cake. I had some leftover pieces that I had hoped to store-but I didn't follow the directions and they were ruined. They must be stored on greased parchment paper-plain waxed paper won't work. I also used some of the mix in the Sugarveil airpen and traced lace from printouts onto greased parchment paper. It was fairly easy to do and I'm expecting even better results with more practice. I would say that it is similar to using royal icing or gumpaste in that the consistency of the mix (adding a little more or less water) and the humidity in the room (air-conditioning, boiling water nearby) need to be controlled for best results.

It was a little tricky to use. I sprayed my mold lightly with Pam and they came out much easier. Definetly need to coats. Leaving it over night was much better.

I tried using a homemade recipe for cake lace, but it turned out too thin. So, I tried SugarVeil because I was rushed to figure out how to make it work and thought it'd be easy. I tried 6 batches before I got some pieces that were usable. It looked beautiful, but I never could get it to be completely dry. It worked out, but I had to be careful to keep it from stretching out of shape or going the other way and being brittle and breaking. Allow lots of practice time if you're going to give it a shot! 1 packaage filled my 3 pattern mold 3 times. Definitely get some sort of scraper. A pastry scraper works well and is cheaper than those sold for cake lace. I tried doing it without one first and it's very hard without one!