I am wanting to do a cake for our office christmas party and I have a really great idea.....I just dont want to see it crash and burn on the floor.

I am going to make the miniball ornaments for each team member, decorated and hand paint their names on it. I was thinking of using a styrofoam cone shape for the tree, wrap in fondant and maybe use toothpicks and royal icing to hold them in place.

Do you think the toothpicks will be strong enough or will i need dowel rods?? Will this idea even work?

Help suggestions anything? LOL

Are you making the Wilton mini ball cakes that are flat on one side or are you putting two halves together to make a full round ornament? I would think that the half-round ornaments would work on a styro cone, but I'd use something like a flat popsicle stick rather than a small-diameter toothpick or dowel. And, I'd probably use two for each ornament. You can buy those little sticks in the craft section of HL or Michaels or AC Moore. If they aren't food safe, you can dip them in chocolate or candy melts to cover and seal the wood. Full rounds are both heavy and bulky - don't think they would be secure. Sounds like a fun project!

Well I was thinking the whole ornament b/c that would each persons individual cake but I guess I could just do half. I think it will be awesome if I can pull it off. I wanna make it kinda realistic so im thinking of doing some branches in modeling chocolate.....

Yeah, a whole ornament would be heavy and fragile. I could see your dowel or popsicle stick tearing right through the cakes.

Perhaps you could insert supports under each ornament so it could be resting on something secure as well as on it's own stick(s). Maybe painted popsicle sticks (with food coloring of course!), for example. You could sharpen the tips and poke them into the cone on an angle. If the cone doesn't hold tight, you could poke the stick in, remove it, squirt a little royal icing into the opening, then replace the stick.

Good luck! Can't wait to see what you come up with!

I am thinking they will be so close to each other they may support from the bottom layer up. What do you think?

It's going to take a **really!!** BIG styro cone to do that. I don't think you will like the results.

There are only 12 total team members.....shouldnt be too bad right?