I am a newbie to this cake thing. I have a lady wanting a 4 tiered (stacked) wedding cake next Sat the 13th and she wants a cascade of silk flowers flowing down the side of all the tiers. She brought me a shoe box of fall silk flowers to put on the cake. I have no clue on what to do any suggestions.??? on how to stick them on the cake without making the one side look like a porcupine. Comments welcomed. Thank you in advace.
Ok, I don't have enough info to help, but being a floral designer as well, I'm sure I can give you some tips.
#1 Does she want some of these to be the cake top?
#2 Sort the flowers by color and size. To see how it will look, lay them on the table in a tear drop fashion starting with the largest on the top and moving down the tear drop according to size, ending with the smallest flowers or buds.
#3 Were the stems removed or are they still attached? If they are only going to sit on top of the cake it won't matter, If you want some to flow down the sides of each cake then they should have some sort of support
You can then transfer this pattern to the cake(s) each tier should have its own cascade, however you can join them together with left over flowers and/or leaves.
Ok jab, that helps me understand what you want to do. I would take those flowers that you want to run down the side, wash the stems, wrap them with either plastic wrap or aluminum foil. then gently stick them into the sides of the cake. First use some of the flowers to create an "S" line starting from the top all the way to the bottom cake board, Hopefully you will have some left over flowers and you can use them to fill in spaces.
It sounds more complicated than it really is. One you try it you like it and of course we all know practice makes perfect.
Don't forget to post a pic for all of us to see. Good Luck.
I do a lot of cascading flowers down the side of the stacked cake. See my pics for ideas ..... I just eyeball them as I insert the flowers, larger flowers first, filling in the gaps with smaller ones, then inserting leaves for balance and color. Put a dollop of BC on the backside of the flower to use as a glue to help hold the flower in place, where needed.
I recently did my first flower cascade cake (the Summer Wildflower one in my photos) and spent a lot of time looking at pictures of cakes with cascade arrangements to see which I liked and disliked and why. Generally, I found they looked best to me if they curved down the cake in a C or S shape rather than marching straight down, got wider as the cascade moved down onto the larger tiers, had a mix of flower sizes, and had 'blurry' edges with a few things sticking out rather than neat edges.
In my case I made most of the flowers out of gumpaste, and just stuck the floral taped wires into the cake. I also mixed in one type of royal icing flower without stems, and just glued those on with buttercream. Do the larger flowers first to get the general shape, then fill in with smaller ones. (In my case I actually did ivy vines first, then larger flowers, then smaller ones.)
I actually stood there looking at the iced cake for about 20 minutes before I got up the nerve to start sticking flowers on it (was afraid I'd wreck it), but it ended up being easier than I'd feared.
-Magda-
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