Flowers On A Dummy(There's More To This Question, I Swear!)
Decorating By Iheartcake Updated 14 Aug 2007 , 8:10pm by Iheartcake
Ok, I'll be doing a dummy cake for an upcoming wedding, and because I'm in the wedding, someone suggested doing the dummy in royal icing so I can do it ahead of time. Perfect, love the idea. 
Now today I'm about to order the roses and had a thought. If the dummy is covered in RI, how do I get the flowers to stay on the cake. I'm thinking if I try to insert one of those mini flower vase thingys (can't remember the name), won't that crack my royal icing? 
since at that point it would be rock hard? 
There may be enough room on the edges of each cake to hold the flowers, but what if they fell over? They should be secured somehow, right? Any suggestions? Any other way to keep flowers on the edges of cakes? Also, can you use the roller melvira method with RI? Thanks everyone!
You can use Flower spikes from wilton. Why don't you try inserting them before your Royal icing (RI) dries up, and the day of the wedding put the flowers in them? Just add a little water with a dropper so they stay fresh longer. The flower spikes can be use with silk flowers (just without the water). Other option are the fresh flower holders, again by wilton, only these need to have floral foam, and can be used with either fresh or silk flowers.
Flower spikes:
http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=3E312C10-475A-BAC0-5D34A3D6D0BDDF27&fid=3E331274-475A-BAC0-5041EF53F94DDB26
You can decorate a dummy cake with buttercream or fondant too. You can do this a month or more in advance too. This is what bakeries do. I used to do dummy cakes for display in the bakery I worked in and I just used our normal buttercream icing and decorated away. The only thing you'll need to make sure of is that no one gets any ideas to poke their fingers in the cake until it is the day of the wedding.
HTH
I currently have two dummy cakes covered in fondant with RI one (which is my mentors and not my design) has been sitting for about 4 years, and mine has been sitting for about 1 month. Both are fine and looked as if they were freshly done. They are hard as a rock however so I am still not so sure about inserting anything into them, but if you are only doing a few days in advance the fondant should still be soft enough to poke.
Once the Royal is dried can it be drilled into? I know it can be sanded. But I don't know about drilled.
cCc
I'd suggest using fondant instead of buttercream, like other people have suggested -- it looks really nice and lasts for a long time. But if you must use Royal, the idea about putting the picks in before the Royal hardens sounds like it would work really well. Good luck!
Ok, I'll be doing a dummy cake for an upcoming wedding, and because I'm in the wedding, someone suggested doing the dummy in royal icing so I can do it ahead of time. Perfect, love the idea.
Now today I'm about to order the roses and had a thought. If the dummy is covered in RI, how do I get the flowers to stay on the cake. I'm thinking if I try to insert one of those mini flower vase thingys (can't remember the name), won't that crack my royal icing? since at that point it would be rock hard? There may be enough room on the edges of each cake to hold the flowers, but what if they fell over? They should be secured somehow, right? Any suggestions? Any other way to keep flowers on the edges of cakes? Also, can you use the roller melvira method with RI? Thanks everyone!
Doing this cake ahead is a great idea.. frees up your time. First, royal iced dummies will last for years, just keep it away from light and dust. Second, the flowers... you are using fresh roses, correct? Roses will stay beautiful for hours without water, so they don't need a water source on the cake. Did you know that you can hot glue those stems? Yep, right to the dummy cake. You can make corsages, or cascade them down the sides, any way you wish. It is a lot faster than using floral tape and wire. Practice it before hand though and use your glue gun on low. hth
Thank you everyone for all the tips!! I really like the glue gun idea. I'm thinking that would be the least troublesome (famous last words, right?). I may go to Michael's and see if they have any flower picks just in case. Me and fondant don't get along, that's why I'm loving the RI idea. Thanks again everyone!
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