I'm making a cake for my sisters wedding and my father has suggested that I make my gumpaste roses with a long realistic looking stem and then bunch them together with a few filler flowers and tie it with a Fondant Ribbon. I looked at him and said "that's a tall order". I have been searching the internet for videos and tutorials on this and I'm still empty handed.

Any suggestions? My first thought was to make the roses ahead of time with long strong wire then when they were dry I would make a long fondant snake and push the wire through it and finally with a pair of scissors I would cut into the fondant at an angle to create the thorns.

I have not tried it yet but i'm going to try tonight.

I agree with your idea with a couple of notes -
First, I'd use gumpaste rather than fondant to cover the stems so they're easier to handle and less fragile.

It's not that easy to thread a long wire through a snake of gp or fondant. It's easier to press the wire into the rope, then pinch it together around the wire. Your thorns will cover any imperfections.

Good luck!

Thanks DianeLM,

I still think my father is asking for to much. lol

I will be making some tonight and try both ways. I'll post pictures when ready. As for the thorns is there any other way besides cutting into the GP?

Well, if you look at a rose stem, the thorns look like they've been added to the stem rather than cut out of it. However, cutting the stem is still the easiest way to make the thorns. You don't have to make a ton of them, just enough to get the point across (yuk yuk). If you bought a bouquet of real roses like that from a florist, they'd remove the thorns!

I am missing something here. If you make the roses with the long stems all tied with a fondant ribbon, where do get placed on the cake?

Lynne3: Sorry I forgot to mention, once the roses are done and I will be placing arranging like a hand held bouquet and place them on a dummy tier so that I can make the GP ribbon to look like it is holding it all together. I will be making it look like a hand held bouquet and then laying it over the the top of the cake. As if the Bride just placed it there. At least this is how I see it in my mind. We will see how it turns out.

As soon as it is done I will be placing pictures.

There's a tutorial on long stemmed gumpaste roses at
http://sugarteachers.blogspot.com/2010_12_27_archive.html