How early can I put a gumpaste decoration on a buttercream cake? The icing is crisco based, no real butter. Will the gumpaste absorb the grease and become soft?

If the decorations are completely dry and 100% gumpaste, you can easily put them on as far ahead as you want (well, within reason), just be sure to keep the cake in a cake box and not in something that will seal in the moisture. How long are you hoping to put them on the cake? My last cake (not in my gallery) I put the gp flowers on the night before and it was fine. And that was a cake that stayed in the fridge until pickup.

ditto what ceshell says .

i did a test once with gumpaste flowers and bc (i use smbc which doesn't crust) and i placed fully dried (that part is really, really important) flowers on smbc, both in fridge and on counter to see if they would wilt. 4 days later they were still hard and holding their delicate petals up fine.

i would never advocate doing decorating four days in advance or leaving anything on the counter that long, lol, but it is good to know that fully dried flowers aren't in peril from the bc .

diane

I'm only talking about a few hours ahead of time. It is 100% gumpaste and feels 100% dry. I put it in the oven for 2 hours on 150 F like I read on this site. It's my first time working with gumpaste so this whole process has been an experiment.

Thanks for the help!