I'm doing a quilled cake this weekend for a girl's 7th birthday and am wondering if I can use buttercream? I know it's traditionally done on fondant but I'm pretty sure 7 year olds would rather have buttercream. Will the pieces stick? I was thinking about putting each petal individually on the cake rather than as one piece so it wouldn't be as heavy. I don't know, I've never done a quilled cake before. Any advice or experience doing this type of cake would be appreciated!

How did the cake go? Did you end up going with a fondant or buttercream base?
 

well, I ended up changing my design. I was just too worried the quills were going to fall off the cake, and I didn't want to experiment with a little girl's birthday cake. They are family friends, but still. They didn't want fondant, so I had to use buttercream. I ended up covering the cake with small royal icing flowers (I used 131 tip)...the cake was cute but a little ordinary looking for my taste. they loved it though and it tasted AMAZING if I do say so myself! I've found a scratch recipe I've fallen in love with!