Help me. I am among those who really struggles with the buttercream roses. Since most of my challenges stem from the center being too soft, I thought the Hershey's kiss center was my answer. I gave it a try this past weekend and had to give up and go back to the hard way.

I could make a nice looking rose with the kiss in the middle but just couldn't figure out how to get the rose off the nail. I had used a bit of buttercream to stabilize it on the nail, made my fair-looking rose and then tried to pry off the kiss. By the time I got my lifter scissors or a spatula under them, they fell over on their heads.

Am I missing something. Can someone offer me some tips on how to make the transition from the nail to the actual cake?

(To make myself feel better, my husband and I just ate the kisses! )

try using wax paper square under the kiss and use buttercream to stabilize both the kiss and wax paper. Let the rose air dry before removing it from the wax paper with the scissors or spatula.

I skewer my Kisses on toothpicks. I don't use the flower nail at all.

Please forgive me if this is a double post - but not sure if the first one went through .........

Thanks for your insight. I never thought about the waxed paper idea - duh! And I did try the skewer thing. I had made a sharpened dowel a while back in hopes that that might be the way I make decent roses. That didn't work and it was too large to use with the kisses. Again, impossible to dislodge without dumping the rose on its head.

I will definitley give this another go using both of your ideas and see if I can't master this technique.

And if it doesn't work... well there is always candy!

My Wilton Class 1 instructor did this for our whole class - she took a little bit of that green florist "clay" type stuff (you can get it at craft stores) and put a small blob on our flower nails. It is great to keep the squares of waxed paper on. When not in use, keep it covered with a bit of plastic to keep it from drying out. That way, no mess of BC on the underside of the waxed paper.

This does pretty much make the top of your nail unwashable, but it can still be rinsed and since I just use that nail for all my roses and nothing edible touches it (I make all my roses on the waxed paper with Hershey's kisses as the base) - works great!