When Separating Tiers With Gumpaste Flowers...?
Decorating By SugarFiend Updated 4 Sep 2011 , 5:47pm by southerncross
Hello all! I recently made my first wedding cake and could use some input on how to fix (for the future) something I did wrong.
I had two tiers that were to be separated with gumpaste flowers. Baking and filling to 4", then using 5" SPS legs with 2" extenders should have left me with a 3" gap to fill - so I spent days making what I thought were 2 1/2" to 3" flowers. I made the cake, put the SPS plate on... Then the very first flower didn't fit. Or the second. Or the third... So after tearing up some of the icing trying to cram them in, I ended up having to use my "emergency" bought flowers - which were all supposedly 2 1/2". And they were much smaller than the ones I made.
I didn't have a ruler to measure anything by then, so I don't know if my flowers were bigger or my gap smaller than expected.
Maybe it would have helped if I had a bigger difference in tier sizes, giving me a wider ledge for the flowers to rest on? The tier sizes were 10" and 12".
So how do you know if you're making the right size flowers? I couldn't for the life of me think of a good way to test or verify.
It just irks me so because they SHOULD have fit. I measured their height while they were laying as I would have placed them.
Any thoughts on how I can avoid this in the future? Thanks in advance for any advice!
Your cake is absolutely lovely and looks perfect to me. The gap with the roses does nothing to detract from this cake. However, if you wish to close that gap here's how I did it.
I made a four tiered cake with SPS and roses filling the gap between the tiers.
http://cakecentral.com/gallery/2120260
I made my roses with a five petal cutter. Normally I make my roses without a cutter but I wanted to make sure they were all as close to same size as possible. When the roses were dry, I measured them with a sewing gauge with slide
http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog/productdetail.jsp?CATID=cat3227&PRODID=prd3125
I also used the slide to measure the exact height of each tier to determine how tall my posts should be for each tier. I push the slide into the cake where one of the SPS "foot" is pushed on to make. (I love that the slide can just be popped into the dishwasher!)
Then I added that amount to the measurement of the roses and cut my posts to that height. It's a bit more effort to cut the posts for each tier but I find it easier that way in the long run.
I ran a dam of buttercream about the top of each tier about one inch in from the tier rim and about one inch high. Then I laid the roses against the buttercream dam to hold them. Some of the roses had a slight overhang of a petal but i thought it softened the appearance.
I hope this helps
Thank you, southerncross! That slide looks very helpful. And your roses (beautiful!) are what I was trying to do, too.
I was really hoping to avoid cutting posts to fit, but if that's what I have to do, that's what I have to do. Grrr...
SugarFiend, the post cuttings aren't as difficult as I expected them to be. I bought a battery run Dremil cutting tool (there are plenty of knockoffs even cheaper) I had read on one thread that some people found a small rotary saw but all I could envision was some large thing...anyway, the little cutter makes short work of the cutting. My tiers are never exactly 4" so I learned early how to cut these things. Best to you.
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