I am getting ready to assemble my first loop bow. I see in the instructions that you are supposed to use royal icing or candymelts to hold it all together. Here's my question....
Can I use anything else? I would hate to whip up a whole batch of royal icing just so I can get a bit for my bow. I also only have chocolate candy melts. Would the brown show through my orange bow?

Please advise! Thank you so much!

I think you should use royal icing because I'm guessing that because it dries so hard makes it hold the loops in there.

Do you have buttercream already made? Go ahead and try it...you never know what might happen?!?!

Good Luck!

I do have buttercream already made, but I know that it will never work.
I guess my question was about the chocolate candy melts. Will they show through the bow?

I have heard of people that said they thinned the buttercream and painted it on with a brush or they used corn syrup .

I do fondant bows all the time, and find that buttercream works just fine. Allow enough time for it to "set" before your customer picks up or before transporting it. If your bows are made of gumpaste, and are very stiff, you can even use a small mound of (stiff) fondant (knead in a bunch of powder sugar), and make a base, and inseart the bow loops into the base (dap the end in a little water). Good luck!

Thanks for the info.

So are you saying that you assemble your bow directly on the cake?

I personally wouldnt put the bow together on the cake....too much room for error.

JMO

I always assemble the bow on the cake. I've never tried off the cake (not sure how you'd move it), the bottom loops need to be stuck to the cake.

That was what I was thinking, especially since I have never made one before.

ahhhh, good point too Allison.

Hmmmmm.......what to do???? <thinking to myself >

They're not hard, a little scary going in the first time... but you'll get the hang of it. You'll be a pro in no time!

I have only ever assembled the bow on the cake and I used regualr buttercream, I have never had a problem....photos of my bows are in my photos

I assembled my one and only bow so far on a piece of wax paper then moved it carefully to the cake. I used candy melts so all the pieces were stuck together well and I didn't have a problem moving it.

I do gumpaste bows (see one in my pix). I use pastilage for my base. Since the bows are so lovely - I tell the bride (or other recipient) that it can be kept as a keepsake. I make a 4" disc out of the pastilage and then use the royal icing to adhere the loops to the base. I then place the whole thing on the cake. You can make a small batch of royal icing - no need to make a full batch. I think it works the best and when the bride brings the bow home and displays it - maybe under a glass dome or something - people come in and compliment her on it and it drums up more business. If your going to spend that much time on a bow - let it more than pay for itself is how I look at it. Just a thought.......

I do my bows directly on the cake also. And I have only used buttercream as the "glue" - it works great, but you have to remember to use the same color as the bow (white for white bow, red for red bow) - I learned that the hard way!

I would've never thought to assemble them directly on the cake. I suppose if you do them frequently, then it'd be a fairly simple procedure. I've only done them on wax paper and then moved them over as well. The base candy melt does show through though. I had trouble getting the vivid colors my friend wanted, so I ended up using spray food coloring to get the fondant and cakes brighter primary colors, so I just sprayed the bows one more time after assembled to make sure the base candy was not as visible as well. Although I did try to use the candy melts closest to the actual color of the bow too.

I use almond bark colored to match the bow loops and assemble them on parchment paper, works great. You can make the bows well in advance doing it this way.

You should be able to use the Americolor color flow to get the vivid colors when coloring almond bark or candy melts.

Actually I just made two bows. They turned out great and were easy to attach to the cakes with buttercream spread on the bottom of the bows before placing on the cakes.