Hi,
I am new to gumpaste and I am wondering if you can add gumpaste flowers to a buttercream frosted cake without drying them first?

It is reccomended for them to be fully dry before placing on a BC cake otherwise they will start to wilt on you.

What do I do if I want to fill in areas and the dried flowers aren't really the right shape?

Often I will pipe leaves or cut out fondant leaves to place in. You could make some fondant or 50/50 flowers if they were small enough and didn't need to hold to firm of shape or have too much ruffling. You could also use other complementary items like fondant pearls, butterfly cutouts (if you don't need them to be upright wing wise), ribbon loops, fondant curlicues. That is all I can think of for the moment.

I usually find my gumpaste dries overnight easily but I live in a dry climate. Is it possible to let your smaller flowers dry a bit more before attaching to the cake? You can speed drying by placing in a cold oven (not turned on) and turning the oven light on. The light generates enough heat to speed drying without melting the gumpaste. Make sure noone turns it on on you though.

Is best to let them dry. The buttercream will not allow for them to dry and i will be worst. Cake-angel is right
Edna

i dry all my gumpaste flowers,etc , with a small fan as i work and after i finish . really speeds up the process. most of the time , i have no patience, and this way helps me get it done faster. hth

Oh thanks all. I have drying time. All my flowers are made and dried. I just wanted to know about filling in. I thought that if I wanted to add a flower that was a certain shape I could fill in with a fresh one, but I guess not. I will try some of the other suggestions.