Okay, I may be overanalyzing this, but here goes...

I bought some sugar flowers to put on a wedding cake I'm making for next weekend. I'm going to be coloring them and then arranging them into small clusters to place as a topper and at two other places on the cake. Do I need to arrange the flowers into a spray that would attach to the cake at one place or can I arrange the flowers on the cake as if the cake were an oasis? And when I'm attaching the flowers, do I need flower picks like for live flowers? Or can I just wrap the wires with something like foil or plastic wrap?

Any help would be appreciated!

As far as the arrangement of the flowers, I would ask the bride what she would like.

Probably just wrapped in plastic/foil would work.

Thanks for the help. Anybody else have any suggestions?

depending on where and how the flowers are going, they can be attached in different ways

If they are sitting on the top of the cake you wont need to push them into the cake, you can, carefully trim or remove wires back and attach with royal icing. If you want a 'mound' of flowers you can make a small disc of fondant and poke your flowers into that. I have a pic in my album done this way.

For a spray of flowers you could wire them together then wrap wire in florist tape... trim the wire as short as possible, bend wire horizontally towards flowers and stick on using royal icing....hope this makes sense

or you could place a flower pick in cake, fill with fondant and insert flowers.

In Australia it is against health regs. to put wire into cakes

HTH

Thanks Trudi!

I was thinking for the top I'd just do the mound of frosting (but fondant sounds like a better idea!) or a smaller cake to poke the flowers into to make a mound of flowers. For the sides and base, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I hate to put a lot of holes into the cake but the cake that they wanted me to recreate has some flowers on the sides of a tier which I think would require a wire in the cake.

I've attached a photo of the cake they want me to recreate so you can see what I'm trying to achieve. It's all buttercream rather than fondant. And it won't be exactly the same flowers - I'm replacing the roses with ranunculus and stargazers but the clustering will be similar.

I guess I'm just nervous. The sugar flowers don't have a lot of flexibility so I can't just wire them together and get the look I want in one cluster. So I guess I'll just try to cluster together what I can and fill it in with individual stems once it's on the cake?

I love the cake!!!

on the top you could also use a foam ball cut in half or to size and cover with fondant and stick flowers to that....it will make it lighter then all fondant

are there any wires on the flowers or have they been removed?

looking at the pic you could probably stick most of your flowers directly onto the cake. You could make a small mounds of icing and then arrange you flowers, if you put the larger ones on first then fill around with smaller ones. I would start at the bottom and work up.

if the flowers still have the wires in and you need to insert them into the cake try and wire the flowers together, tape. Insert a piece of straw (on a downward angle) where you need the flowers that way there will be less holes

HTHs .... Maybe someone else has got some better ideas!!!

Don't forget to post the pic when your done!!!!

A straw to hold the wires!! Why didn't I think of that!? And a styrofoam ball for the topper is a great idea too!

The flowers all have wires on them. But I'm more familiar with "gluing" them directly to the cake. The only flower I worry about regarding weight is the ranunculus, and I think I can use the straw idea for those and then just cut off the wires on the lilies and filler and add them around it.

Thanks so much Trudi!

Trudi - just wanted to say that I posted a photo this evening. It went pretty well, all things considered. I did use the fondant-covered styrofoam and that helped immensely! I just a combination of straws and laying the flowers on the cake. The tiers didn't have as much room for the flowers to lay on the cake so I ended up doing more tiers of smaller clusters. I think it worked considering it was my first wedding cake and my first time working with gumpaste flowers. Thanks for all your help!

Christy, I would love to see your finished cake but I cant seem to find it posted anywhere.

Hi Christy

Your cake is beautiful you did a fantastoc job . Done like a pro!!!!

Heres a tip (I learnt this the hard way!!) when you make your next stacked cake (looking at this cake you'll have plenty more orders!!) use tin sizes 2inchs apart eg 8in, 10 in, 12in this way you have more decorating room!!!

I couldn't leave a comment on your posted pic...if you go into "My Forum Info" scroll down to the prefrence section and about the 4th line down click on "yes" to allow comments on your photos.!!!

once again ....great work, I am glad I could help!!!!

Trudi -

Thanks for the compliment! I thought the flowers turned out pretty well, all things considered. I'll change the settings on my photo. This new photo gallery still needs some tweaking.

The cake was 6" square, 10" round, 12" round, and 14" square. I used Wilton pans for the round cakes and they didn't come out exactly 10" and 12" inch. I trimmed down the 12" cake round to fit the cake but I didn't do that on the 10" and just added more frosting to make it fit the circle. I think that's why there wasn't as much space between the tiers.

I wasn't sure which way I should go. I'm not a big fan of frosting so I don't go very thick normally. But then sometimes you can see the cake through the frosting. And then if I go the other route and just add frosting to meet up with the cake circle, the frosting tends to either crack or get "lumpy" in places. Any suggestions on that?

I am not a fan of frosting.....I try and avoid it. ...Luckily in Australia not too many people request it, they prefer fondant and frosting tends to melt quite badly here!!!

When I do frost I usual put it on quite thickly. crumb coat first let set then top coat let sit for a bit then smooth. Maybe you could try the Melvira method in the tutorials ppl here swear by it....I haven't yet tried it, I have bought the roller, so if I have to make another frosted cake I will give it a go.


As for cracking, it could be that your cake boards aren't firm/strong enough. This can even cause fondant to crack. But there could be other reasons though.....maybe you should post a question regarding your frosting probs, I'm sure there are heaps of frosting gurus who will be more than happy to help

I would love to see how your cake came out but the gallery is down. I will look once the gallery is back up and running. I am lost without that gallery.

Love the look of that cake. It gives me idea's for my dds cake for this weekend.