Good morning everyone!

I am doing a cake for this Friday and U'm having trouble trying to figure out the best way to go about it. The cake will be a 10 inch round with a silhouette of the NYC skyline going around it... What makes it a little difficult for me is that I don't want the skyline attached to the sides of the cake. I made my skyline from gumpaste and I let it dry around a 12 inch cake pan. I plan to put led lights between the actual cake and the gumpaste skyline. My dilemma is I'm not sure what to use to attach the standing skyline to the board without it falling over. Has anyone done something like this before.

I forgot to add that the client will be picking the cake up so I would like it to be as sturdy as possible.

Does the skyline go completely around the cake?
Am I picturing it right? Or is it a backdrop going half way around?

If it goes completely around, is that a layer that will be cut/eaten? or is it an extra or dummy layer?

The skyline will go all the way around the cake. Let me see if I can word it a bit better... Imagine the 10 inch cake with a 12 inch ring/skyline around it, it will be empty space between the cake and the ring/skyline where the lights will go. its the 12 inch ring that needs the stands and I doubt anyone will actually eat it, they'll probably just remove it to get to the cake behind it. Thank you for your help.

Can you set your skyline into a ring of royal icing? If you needed more stability than a simple ring of royal, you could build the RI up behind the skyline to give it a wider base. You could even fill the space between cake and skyline with a shallow slope of RI so that it won't slide while in transport. If you allow the RI bridge to dry fully before you slip it over the cake it shouldn't stick to the cake at all. Hope this is clear enough for you to understand.

Glad to be of help.

I would make L brackets out of gumpaste and something flat like a popcicle stick.
The popcicle stick would go under the cake and connect to a gumpaste post that becomes the upward part of the L. Then your client can be told where to disconnect. With this, you run the risk of the client picking up the ring and damaging the cake if he is doesn't follow your directions.

Another way is to put 4 dowels into the cake and use royal icing to attack to the skyline ring. If I did that, I would also put continuous dots of royal icing under my skyline ring to attack it to the cake board.

Or just use the royal icing dots under the skyline ring. Make small fondant covered rice krispie treat blocks to fill in the space at 4 points around the cake. Royal ice those to the cake board and you're done

This is a timely post - I''m doing a SF skyline in a few weeks and I've just started to wrap my brain around how I'm going to translate my concept sketch to a real cake. The skyline is giving me anxiety!

I also have no idea where to buy LCD lights, I was going to use glow sticks. Any leads on where to get them?

If its a solid ring it should stand on its own. How will the lights be hidden? How tall is the skyline?

You guys are really awesome thank you! I think I will use a combination of your idea Lynne with the brackets as well as cakeyouverymuch's idea of placing the skyline in a ring of royal. This should be extra sturdy for transport. Thanks again.

@ fromscratch I ordered mine from overstock.com but once I realized they were coming in the regular mail and not UPS I bought back up from party city. they are just tiny little wireless bulbs that you twist on they last for 8 hours. They are called mini party lights on the packaging.

You can attach the skyline to the side of a 12'' dummy placed on the cake board/drum (I don't know if 1 or 2'' tall dummies are available...) and pop the cake on the top. Cover the space between the cake and the skyline with something/arrange your lights. Just a thought.

The lights sound amazingly fun if the cake is going to be in a dark area. If not, it's a lot of worl for no gain. I have done skyline cakes. They are very pretty and not so hard to do. But I never did one with lights. Thats a nice idea.