okay, this is probably a really simple question...but i'm a newbie, so i must ask. how do i do a cascade with gumpaste roses? i mean, is there a trick to it? i had to do one for the 3rd wilton course, but the cake was covered with fondant and we used icing to attach the roses - which didn't work too well. my instructor said that leaving the toothpicks in them would've helped - that way we could just stick them in the cake. the cake that i have to do is going to be a 3 tier square with buttercream icing. i'm going to be using wire for my roses instead of toothpicks - i'm following the instructions in the wilton gumpaste flower book. this is the cake the bride likes:
http://www.thebestcakeshop.com/albums/album_image/2224068/644224.htm
plz, anyone have any suggestions? i need all the help i can get. this will be my first really major wedding cake. thanks!
well, i did mine on toothpicks...the pic is in my gallery...
but if u do the gumpaste on wires i'm not sure how u stick it in the cake..i think i saw these things that u use for real flowers...u just put that into the cake, add icing in the little flower holder and stick in the wires...not 100% sure tho...and i kno someone else can give u a name for those..i cant remember right now
You are going to wire the roses to each other to create the cascade by attaching them together with covered wire - you use green florist tape to do this and have them attached to the cake in only a few places. Where you attach them you can use the Wilton flower spikes, or a staw to stick the wired flower in or wrap the covered wire around a straw or wooden bamboo skewer or something like that, but you really should not place covered wire directly into the cake. To ease some of the weight, starting each cascade of flowers that are wired together, at each tier is a good idea, which means the cascade would be attached in only three or four places.
Otherwise I would go with the toothpick or skewers for the roses, the only drawback on this method is it is a lot of work to remove them all to serve the cake and you will have a lot of holes in your cake also. I prefer the toothpick method when there are not so many flowers.
It is a good idea to have your cake pans stacked to resemble the finished height and size of cake and use this to figure out your cascade placement before putting it on the actual cake. Sometimes if you have cake dummies handy, this is a good way to prepare your cascade ahead of time.
Hugs Squirrelly
One of my cake pals, Labrat, did a wonderful step-by-step on a floral spray she was doing for a wedding cake. It is on the site:
www.r-bdesigns.com under the Message Board, topic - Gumpaste - entitled Step-by step Floral Spray. I think this might be of some help to you.
Hugs Squirrelly
It is a great tutorial. I think it is really helpful to have pictures to get the idea and she did a great job. The floral tape is available in green or white, I think she used white in her picture.
Hugs Squirrelly
SquirellyCakes...when I tried to make fondant roses on covered wire..the covering kept sliding off whenever I tried to push the base onto it. So then I thought you were supposed to use uncovered wire...but I haven't tried it again since, as I somehow lost one of my cutters. I've ordered them (two weeks ago) but as of this morning the order hasn't yet been sent out. I'm a jinx lately. But I need to know how to keep the covering ffrom slipping off if that's the wire to use, and also, how to make a bouquet without having a bulky bunch of wires in the back. I've tried to find a place to take a gumpaste flower making course; but nothing is available around here. I'm basically self-taught because of this.
Well, take a look at the tutorial I mentioned above and on the same site, under Techniques, take a look at "Meg1's Pastry School roses" for another wonderful method. Even though this method doesn't use wires or toothpicks, you could still insert either.
Some people cover the wire before putting the base on, others cover the wire afterwards. Not sure how you attach your base, but I always coat the wire - covered or not - using a bit of royal glue which is a combination of a mixture of about 1 tsp. of meringue powder to 1 tsp. of water, that is the ratio. Then I slide the base on and shape it around the wire making sure it is pressed on well and adhering and let it dry for 24 hours before attaching petals. I only put one row of petals on at a time and let them set up somewhat before putting on the next row. I have used the Rose bouquet cutters and the individual ones also and tend to allow drying time in between rows. With these methods, I bend the wire so the blooms are hanging more on an upside down angle when drying. I have styrofoam insulation sheets I get at building supply stores in 4 feet by 8 feet pieces that I cut down. I raise the styrofoam so that the centre is suspended, you can place it over a large pot, and I hang the flowers from the centre so that they are upside down, basically hanging into the pot but not touching anything. Or if you have hooks in the ceiling you can suspend the styrofoam, ideally a pot rack or something like that will do. Even bending the wires so the flowers are sideways stops the petals from drooping and takes pressure off the centre bud so that it doesn't allow the wire to push through the top.
Or you can tie a piece of plastic wrap around the petals to hold them in place and rest the base on a sheet of styrofoam.
I am self-taught too. I think there are some excellent courses out there but I don't always like the results depending on who is teaching them. Remember that they are teaching how they do them and there are many ways of doing them and many different results. Some to me, don't look natural at all, especially the leaves. A lot of times the leaves are not given the same attention and look like cookie cutter leaves with the edges of the leaves being too thick. You really need to thin out the edges and dry them on different angles to get a realistic appearance. If you thin out using a balling tool, you thin from the outside in as thinning from the inside out tends to stretch and crack the edges. Same thing with petals.
Their are different veining tools and pads etc. available and sometimes you will have things around the house that work just as well, if not better. For example, I use that thin sort of combination styrofoam and plastic, packing material that is sometimes used to wrap stereo equipment and applicances. It is great for use instead of foam or sponge when you are thinning out your petals. I like it because it has an almost veiny appearance. If you look at a real rose petal, they are not perfectly smooth, they have little wrinkles in them and I find I can get that impression using this packing material.
I think a lot of people think they have to take a course put on by a certain know decorator to accomplish realistic flowers and personally, I don't think this is true. If you have a book, a gardening book, on flowers and if you purchase a real flower, you will be able to duplicate it by studying how the actual flower grows and is put together. That is just my opinion but I find it to be true. The first time I made fondant flowers I followed book instructions. Afterwards, I purchased the real flowers, took one apart to see the construction and looked at the other on still intact to see how the petals fell etc.
Gumpaste flowers usually have more of a fine china or porcelain appearance, so even duplicating a china rose will give you a good effect. I find fondant flowers look more natural in my opinion, though they don't hold up quite as well, they are more delicate.
Hugs Squirrelly Cakes
Thanks so much SquirellyCakes, much useful information. Were you talking about taping the wires together though, as covered wire? I meant that some wire comes as, well, just wire, and some comes with a covering on that. I'm just still not clear on which one to use. I agree with you that practice, and using models will me helpful. And I didn't know that rolling from the outside in, would thin the edges without cracking the petals or leaves...I wonder how long it would have taken me to figure that one out!
And I agree with you that leaves and petals with thick edges just don't look natural.
I use the wire and then cover it with florist's tape as I don't find that the wire you can buy that is already covered is a thick enough gauge of wire. How thick a wire will depend on the weight of the floral blooms. If you get it too thin, it won't support and too thick and you cannot bend it right.
I think you will find as you play that you will find little ways of getting a better effect.
I tend to cut or make a whole bunch of leaves and petals and wrap them in plastic wrap and then double bag them and only take them out as I thin them out and attach. Otherwise they dry out really easily and you get a lot of the cracking on the edges. I also roll out on a very lightly greased with Crisco shortening surface. I only dip my two finger in Crisco and just put enough to get bit of a sheen on the work surface, nothing you can actually see. I found that rolling on powdered sugar or cornstarch, created a drying effect.
I just say that if you are making your flowers out of fondant, that Wilton works really well for this purpose because it already has a hardening agent in it. Taste isn't an issue because the flowers are so thin and anyway, if you are putting them on wires, people shouldn't be eating them anyway. Lead is used in the manufacturing of the floral wire in the painting process and the tape itself isn't considered food safe by the manufacturers as it hasn't been tested for that. I had sent an email to Milton Adler, the major floral tape manufacturer in the U.S. and they stated that they couldn't really say if their tape was food safe as they hadn't tested it for that purpose and were not certain.
Hugs Squirrelly
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