I have taken the gum paste course, great fun. I want to do a stunning xmas cake but we didnt learn poinsettias.
Holly i can figure out. I am having trouble picturing this cake. I have 3 fruit cakes which I could stack- I would like to do that because I havent yet. It would have to be royal icing! (traditionnaly rock hard Do I put the pillars in when the icing is wet? SHould I add piping gel to keep it going to hard, and how much?
What kind of flowers, maybe all white ones. ANy ideas
thanks

You don't have to use royal icing. You can cover in marzipan and fondant. Just dowel inbetween each layer. The cheats way to make a poinsettia is to use a caylx cutter. Just cut 3 out in red. Stick one one top of the other so the petals are offset and pipe a few little dots of yellow in the middle. If you want to use royal but don't want it to set so hard add some glycerine. 1tsp to every 1lb of icing sugar

If you're using traditional christmas cake / fruit cake, I can't imagine that you'd need to dowel it ... that stuff is DENSE!!!

MissB is right, you don't have to use royal ... but I have seen really pretty ones done with a full marzipan covering, then royal icing cornelli work over top (much better than completely covering it!)

I use a lot of fruit cake as that is what is traditional in england for wedding and christmas cakes.It is dense but it is also heavy. If you cover in royal icing without the glycerine you don't need to dowel as the icing is strong enough to hold the weight, but if you use fondant or add glycerine you do need to dowel as I have known cakes break under the weight

This worksheet might help you with the poinsettia:

http://www.fmmsugarcraft.com/pdf/Project18.pdf