Making Buttercream Roses on a Stick
This is a method of creating roses on a dowel or stick as opposed to using a flower nail. Some cake decorators prefer this method.
View the video & step by step standard Wilton method of creating buttercream roses on a flower nail
1. Take a short piece of a dowel stick, the kind you’d use for doweling a tiered cake, approximately 6 to 7 inches in length.
Tint your buttercream icing and place in your bag using tip 101, 102, 103 or 104.
I start off by “anchoring” my rose to the stick by squeezing the icing onto the stick, pressing it to make it kind of adhere/stick to the side of the dowel stick.
2. Holding the wide part of the tip down, turn the dowel and make a center to the rose going all the way around the dowel stick
3. Once you have the center of your rose made, you will make 3 petals. Starting against your dowel stick, with the wide part of your rose tip down against the stick, press, lift and turn the dowel stick, making kind of an arch and covering about 1/3 of the area around the center of your rose and make your first petal. Repeat 2 more times
4. Next you’ll do the same petal formation, except you’ll do 5 petals
5. Now you’ve completed your rose, you’ll need a “lifter” which could be the Wilton rose/flower lifter that looks like a pair of scissors or there is one that fits your finger and you can lift the roses off of the dowel stick
5. OPTIONAL: If you want to dry your roses, cut squares of wax paper, poke a hole in the center with your dowel stick and slide the wax paper up to your rose. With your hand under the wax paper, carefully lift the rose off the dowel stick
6. If you do not have time for your rose to dry and want to place on top, you can push them off using a small spatula or knife
NOTE: You cannot place your buttercream roses on sides of cake if roses are not dried, they will simply fall off
7. After I’ve dried the roses, you can put some buttercream icing on the base of it, then take a toothpick, push through the center opening of your rose. Holding on to the toothpick, push into the side of your cake in the location you’d like to place it.
I’ll take another toothpick, and push in the toothpick that I’ve inserted into the side of the cake to hide it so it won’t be seen.
8. Remember to let whoever you make the cake for know there are toothpicks inserted into the side where your roses are cascading down
I saw this on The Next Great Baker and I was like Holy Crap! This is so gonna save me time and effort. I find the cutting of wax paper and all that other stuff tedious.
Looks really hard to do
It's really not. I learned to make roses this way from my mother, only she used the rose nail upside down. It makes the bud much easier to form. I still can't make them on the flat part!
Can I just check - by "drying" the roses do you mean just to let the buttercream harden before placing it at the side of the cake? It will still get soft if it's very warm, right?