My sister wants a navy ribbon around her wedding cake tiers. I was going to do it in fondant, but I am having a horrible time getting the color to be navy. So my questions are:
1. Is it possible to pipe on real ribbon once it is on the cake?
2. If yes, what would be better buttercream or royal?
3. How do you attatch a real ribbon to a cake so that it stays?

Thank you thank you thank you for any help you can be.

I am panicking here....I even looked at safeway to see how much it would cost me just to buy her a cake...but then saw the price and told myself that I can do this. The wedding is on Saturday by the way.....uggh.

To attach the ribbon, make sure the sides of cake are straight up and down (use a bench scraper to smooth the icing and this will make it straight ... no angles and no slopes. The slopes are what causes gaps in the ribbon when it's wrapped). I attach the two ends with a blop of ribbon in the back.

Are you putting an icing dot border at the base or piping scrolls or something on the ribbon? I've done both. I would recommend you coat the ribbon in crisco to discolor the whole thing first. Careful ..... when crisco-ing navy blue ribbon, it can turn black (guess how I found out?). So pick up a few shades of blue to experiment with to see which one gives you the final color you're looking for.

You can pipe royal on the ribbon & it won't have grease spots.

Glad to know that tip indydebi

A blop of ribbon! Even *I* would like to see how I do that!

A blop of icing! Yes, ICING!!

When I worked at the bakery we always used a weatherproof-type ribbon on the cakes, rather than a satin ribbon. They don't soak up grease so they're good to pipe directly onto. You won't be able to find it in a lot of colors, though, so when places like Hobby Lobby have a good selection of it on sale (it's usually near the floral department), I stock up.

HTH,
Deanna

How about using a stencil in the exact color of icing that you need? you can hold the stencil up against the cake and gently scrap the icing on?...can be just in a ribbon form...or something with actual designs...Just another idea

sorry but I dont understand what is "blop" I looking in the dictionary and I dont find it.... but I think that is a little bit of icing?? it works good in cloth ribbon??

Thanks for all the replies and the good ideas. My sis is going to buy the satin ribbon she wants and I told her to go a shade lighter than she wants it to look since I will crisco it. I have a stamp I am going to use to stamp onto the ribbon....does anyone know if they make stamp pads using white food coloring, or will I have to sort of make my own up?

I have a similar question. How would you go about attatching a satin ribbon around mmf? Doesn't seem like it should get spots since there is no grease in mmf, right? Can I just attatch it with a "blob" in the back where the ribbon joins. Would that be enough to hold it in place?