I am doing a cake for a friend who is getting married in Key West. Since we won't be there, a bunch of us girls are getting together to celebrate her wedding. So I am making a chocolat cake with strawberry and cream filling - white buttercream on the outside. I will pipe simple leaves and vines with silver dragees. I wanted to put tropical flowers on the cake but cannot find ANY organic flowers. I am not a whiz with gumpaste tropical flowers, but I don't want to do silk either. Any ideas how to make this look "Key Westish?" Thanks in advance.

First thing I thought of was key lime filling and chocolate sea shells as decoration, but since you're looking for flowers, here's one i googled with hibiscus on it. Looks like it's brush embroidery and fairly easy to do!

http://www.cakecouture.co.nz/weddings/folio/cake32.html

I've never been to Key West, but here in Hawaii Plumeria are very popular. They're really easy to make with Royal icing. You can do white, 5 petal flowers and then once dried you can "paint" the center a yellow or pink. These are the two most popular colors. You could even do the striping method in the bag and get a good result. Anyway, good luck.

You could wrap the stems or put the flowers in the plastic picks that wilton makes (HoneyBee carries them in Tampa) to keep the flowers from touching the cake.

Thanks for the great ideas. I have some options now!