I am trying to make a ladder out of royal icing for a fire truck birthday cake. Any ideas on how to go about doing this? any tips would be MUCH appreciated!

I'm a newbie also and my thoughts would be to trace the design of the ladder you want on plain white paper then cover with waxed paper and follow the design underneath. Let dry and then remove it carefully and apply it to your cake. HTH

I think I would try gumpaste or fondant instead. I may be wrong, but all I can imagine doing is to put waxed paper down on a cookie sheet, and using a large tip, pip it out and really let it set up. But I'm thinking that any large piece like that, especially with such small areas covered, it will be very fragile and likely to break. Good luck with it. Will it be secured to the side of a fire truck or another surface? In that case, maybe just pipe directly onto the surface it will be attached to.

If the royal icing will have time to dry put it over spaghetti or linguine noodles laid out to minic a ladder. This will make the ladder stronger.

I would be inclined to make it out of candy melts, fast drying and very sturdy!

Royal icing will work- lay a ladder frame using spaghetti or linguini on waxed paper or parchment paper and pipe using a flat tip. Use a paint brush dipped in water to finish edges and smooth. Let dry 2 to 3 days and use a tapered spatula to release ladder from paper. If you don't want the spaghetti to show from the back paint thinned royal icing over it and let dry.
Pretzel sticks dipped in white chocolate.-The small ones. Lay out into a ladder as you dip-lay on parchment paper.
Hope this helps.
Happy Baking and Decoorating,
Chef Angie

I made mine out of gumpaste, rolled piece, cut 2 equal strips then the rungs for the ladder just cut quanity of small pieces same size and glued them between the 2 longer pieces with tylose glue and left to dry, worked out great for me.

I did a ladder using royal icing and it worked out fine. I used a tip #3 to pipe it. I did draw a pattern on a cake board and then covered with wax paper. I piped onto the wax paper and let dry a couple days - you can see it in my pix - it's the firetruck cake. I did make 2 extra "just in case" but didn't need them. Good luck.

I made mine with royal icing..As long as it is made well enough in advance the royal icing is very strong.I piped over a template and then pieced them together on the truck to make it look 3D.Here is a pic...