Hi, I am doing a wedding cake for my niece's friend this weekend. It will be a 3 tier stacked, iced with buttercream with a cascade of roses down the cake. I am wondering if there is a recipe for icing that is stronger than buttercream but not as hard setting as royal icing. I don't want to make fondant flowers by hand due to cost and time, i make buttercream roses quickly by hand and rose nail, but wondered if there was a type of icing that would set, so i could handle the roses to place them on the cake without ruining them. Normally i would freeze to set buttercream, but i don't think that will work with the sheer number of roses this cake will need.

thanks for any help.

I guess it depends on how intricate your cascade is, but you could make your buttercream roses ahead of time and freeze them. I have done this before and it works well. When it is time to decorate, you cake take the flowers out of the freezer a few at a time, so they stay hard longer as you are working.

Have you tried air drying them, they keep for a long time once they are fully dried. And are pretty easy to work with.

thanks guys, i like the freezing a day ahead, that might work.

i have never used a crusting buttercream, would that dry out pianocat? i don't know if my regular buttercream would dry that much in a couple of days

Crusting butter cream will dry out but I would start on them now.