Placing Fresh Hydrangea Directly On Cake
Decorating By LorienSkye Updated 26 Jun 2008 , 1:04pm by wgoat5
I have a wedding cake for this weekend in which the bride would like a 3 tiered cake with fresh hydrangea placed between the tiers (i.e: the "tower of roses" effect but with hydrangea.) I will not be sticking the stems of the hydrangea into the cake at all, but I am still nervous about even placing them directly on top of the cake. What do you all do with fresh flowers? Do you think I should use a second separator plate on top of each tier to place the hydrangea on? I just hate the look of that second plate........
I think hydrangea wilt faster than roses so place them as last minute as possible.
Ok... I just have a question here... Sure, all parts of the hydrangea plant may be poisonous (or toxic at least), but would someone REALLY get sick from eating a slice of cake that a petal touched for a while? I mean, I touch flowers all the time, and I rarely (if ever) wash my hands directly after, and I KNOW I eat things within a few minutes so if you think about it, that's not much different than licking a flower right? And if licking a flower wouldn't make someone sick (I can't see that it would, at least for non-exotic plants), how would having a flower sitting on top of some icing for a few hours possibly transfer enough toxin to make someone sick?
I'm no plant expert, so I'm truly asking a question here... it just doesn't make sense to me!
And for the record, the bakery I work at uses fresh flowers on ALL our cakes (wedding and birthday)... Pushed directly into the cake, and we use ANY type of flower (MOST are non edible) and NONE of them are organic or washed. I do NOT condone this practice, and I HATE doing it, but my boss won't listen to reason on this issue, and I need my job. HOWEVER, we've never gotten any complaints about anyone getting sick. One time a man called and asked if the flowers on his cake were edible... we said probably not, and he said "well, I ate them." 
Never heard anything back from him, but I assume that he'd have filed a major complaint if he'd gotten sick... 
But I defiantly don't see a problem with placing a flower on top of icing... at least I can't see it making anyone sick.
I have a real ticky stomach. And of course sometimes it's worse than others. I mean I could get sick from cake that was fine. I could already be sick before I eat it. Hey I don't even have to eat and get sick. 
I mean life is risk. So I'm not saying oooh woogy boogie they are gonna getcha. I'm just saying think of the youngest, the oldest and the infirm and consider making your product as great as possible. Probably nobody would ever get sick. If somebody did get sick from something else and question were asked you would want to be prepared with the cleanest brightest answers and products.
If new mommy bear takes a little swipe of icing on her finger tip and places it in baby's little brand new fresh vulnerable mouth in your heart you want to feel happy and good about that. You don't want to suck all the air out of the room y'know?
I don't go overboard with the flower thing. I'm reasonably careful.
Is there any way you can let the florist place the flowers? The reason I ask is because hydrangeas wilt and wilt fast if not placed in water. My concern is that the hydrangeas won't hold up.
Minette
My Blog www.minetterushing.typepad.com
At my weddings, florists are usually long come-and-gone by the time I get there to set up the cake.
Thanks for all of the great feedback, ladies. I think I will consult my cake mentor today and see what she says, also, but it sounds like the best course of action will be to place her live hydrangea on the table top around the base of the cake and use silks directly ON the cake 
I always cut a piece of wax paper the same size of the cake, so that no flowers are actually touching the cake.
As for the poisonous plant thing...my degree is in horticulture, and I do not remember the exact stats for hydrangea (and it would vary from species to species), but for many plants (not all) put in the poisonous category you would have to consume literally hundreds of leaves/flowers (depending on the plant) to get sick.
With that said, I still don't like any flower actually touching my cake for the shear fact that I don't know what it was sprayed with right before it left the nursery!
And yes, hydrangeas wilt FAST!! They really need to be in florist's water tubes if possible.
Y'know I been thinking about the silk versus fresh thing. And as an aside here, I get the serious heebee jeebee's when I see feather boa's, peacock feathers etc. on or near cakes. And I am not at all Polly Purebred with my cakes. But feathers are a huge no no for me.
So all that to say, wonder how much lead is in the silk flower stems. And for sure they are not near as well kept as fresh in the sense of possible rodent activity and etc. I bought a bunch of tables all boxed up at a local big box crafty place for the bookstore and the amount of mouse puckus was disturbing to say the least. I had to take the boxes outside to deal with it. Yuck squared.
I use fresh I use silk (no feathers!) I'm just thinking out loud here.
In regards to the cleanliness of the silk and other fake flowers.. there is a way to make them clean.. there is actually a spray (I have it for greenery that is above my cabinets in the kitchen) that cleans anything off of the flowers... but I would much rather do that then to put something that MAY be deadly to someone severely allergic ...
Y'know I been thinking about the silk versus fresh thing. And as an aside here, I get the serious heebee jeebee's when I see feather boa's, peacock feathers etc. on or near cakes. And I am not at all Polly Purebred with my cakes. But feathers are a huge no no for me.
So all that to say, wonder how much lead is in the silk flower stems. And for sure they are not near as well kept as fresh in the sense of possible rodent activity and etc. I bought a bunch of tables all boxed up at a local big box crafty place for the bookstore and the amount of mouse puckus was disturbing to say the least. I had to take the boxes outside to deal with it. Yuck squared.
I use fresh I use silk (no feathers!) I'm just thinking out loud here.
I completely agree! We don't know where these silk flowers come from, where they've been before they get to us, or what they contain!
In regards to the cleanliness of the silk and other fake flowers.. there is a way to make them clean.. there is actually a spray (I have it for greenery that is above my cabinets in the kitchen) that cleans anything off of the flowers... but I would much rather do that then to put something that MAY be deadly to someone severely allergic ...
Severely allergic would not eat food like that or they would be playing Russion roulette.
Where/how do we know that someone could actually die from a flower on a cake. I don't think we have that proof. They might get sicker maybe maybe not. It's more of a bad call that would be uncomfortable to explain later if something untoward happened like with some other food substance or something was being investigated.
Mouse poop or mouse poop residue could really be deadly. Oh look, honey, some stray chocolate sprinkles...
OHHH YUMMM LOL
I see what you are saying 
I think its a iffy thing anyways..
You know.. our cake boards/drums/etc are delivered from warehouses... so who knows what has crawled on them or done what have you 
... be extremely cautious.. wash wash and wash again ... except how do you wash a drum??????????? You can wipe down but not wash
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