I am new at making bc roses and I am not having good results. I have also tried the mmf which had better results but very time consuming. Does anyone use fake flowers or real ? I want to make a nice cake for my mom - who is visiting this wekend. I can manage to get a nice basketweave - but I am at a loss for the cake top. I was imagining a basket of flowers I have tried the bc roses on a stick ................ mine look nothing like the picture !?! Are there easier flowers to make than the rose for a beginner? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.[/url]

I make my roses out of royal, not bc.

The only advice I can give is to keep practicing!

Is there any specific thing you're having a problem with?

Maybe post a pic of your flowers in this thread and maybe we can SEE where you could use a little help.

Good Luck!

my bc roses are droopy, with little shape. I have a hard time shaping the rose on the nail. I'll take a pic later and post it. Is royal easy to work with ?

If you are having trouble making the roses on the stick, how about making them on a flower nail? It may be a little easier if youo can control the base build up.

Also, is your icing stiff enough? That was the problem I was having for the longest time.

What BC recipe are you usning? It sound like it isn't stiff enough. There is a recipe on here for BC frosting for roses, just do a search in recipes. Hope this helps

You could make ribbon fondant roses. They will be time consuming but are pretty ez. I have a difficult time with roses too and often mold them out of candy clay. There are also rose cutters out there in the realm of cake dec. One thing for sure, even if your roses are not perfect, don't despair. Most people think anything made with your sweet, loving hands are the best. In other words. they don't know the difference and think you are a genious.

My kids like anything I make ................. they even eat the mmf roses and ribbons as they are drying. Practically have to hide it away. My mom is pretty critical though. I use the half shortening version of bc. I have tried adding more icing sugar to stiffin it but it gets really pasty? Does that make sense ? I even tried refrigerating it to make it easier to work with. I think it's me I haven't tried royal icing except on cookies ? I don't have alot of options to buy special tools and pans etc here on this little island in the middle of no where . Most of my ideas I have been getting from you guys ................. which by the way has gotten me this far ........lol

I make mine on a nail. I don't think I could do it anyother way, but you have to do what works for you.

Royal icing is very easy to work with...as long as you have it the right consistency.

It should peak and hold that peak when you dip the back of a spoon in it and pull out.

If you need to know more about royal, msbaritone on here seems to know just about everything there is to know about royal.

Good Luck and let us see what you come up with!

thank you very much ............... I'll post a pic. I have been afraid to post my cake pictures, i have seen so many beautiful creations here .............. my compliments come from my kids ...... But like I said they'll eat anything ..........

I think that drop flowers are the very easiest to make from royal icing. Next would be the wild rose, rose buds or half roses. I also think using the flower nail might be easier for you when you practice your full roses.

Since Mom is coming very soon, I'm going to suggest you do something other than the rose because that will take some practice. If you look in my photos, there's a green basketweave cake with blue lilacs on it. If you're trying to impress your Mom, you might try imitating this cake because I thought it came out very pretty and unusual. I would change the colors to look more girly, though; my cake was for a boy so I had to rack my brain for the color scheme. The lilacs are very easy to make: first take a small round tip and pipe green lines where you want to place your lilac clusters and stems; take a star tube (I used a #21) and pipe the general shape of the lilac cluster over the top portion of your green lines in whatever color you want the lilacs. This will give you a mound to pipe your lilacs on. Then, using a #133 tip or a smaller star tip with a lot of openings, pipe a bunch of drop flowers all over the mounds. If you want multi-colored flowers, make each color of icing separately and then swirl them together and fill your bag. If you spatula stripe them, they look pretty fake. Then, I'd throw some cake sparkles on for pizzaz, if you have them.

Instead of doing a rope or shell border on the bottom, I did a variation of another border I've seen that looks fancier: I took a larger star tip and piped a star every so often, then I piped a leaf on both sides of each star, then I took a smaller round tip and piped a line over each star that looked like a frown with the ends curled inwards.

I hope this helps you.

Well I finished it anyway The good news is with more practice I figure my problem was the consistency of the icing............... I think I'll do much better next time

Keep practicing the roses, you'll get the hang of it , but it does sound as though your icing is not stiff enough.

I've made a basket cake using startips and drop flower tips for the flowers. Star tip to make hyacinth/wisteria/lilac and then different sizes of drop flowers in idefferent colors. It's more of a fanciful look rather than realistic.

If you want to make fewer flowers, put your basket weave on 1/2 of the top of a round cake, border the other 1/2 to look like a handle and fill the rest with flowers - does that make sense the way I wrote it?

yes that does make sense ......... and probably a good idea for a beginner like me . Have you done that before and have a picture I could see ?
I greatly appreciate all the advice !!!!