I'm making a couple shower cakes and I was wondering how to attach a gumpaste moon topper to my cake. I also wanted to attach floral wire with stars. Any suggestion?

I usually take some melted chocolate and a scewer or some sort of stick and attach it to the back of the piece. You can also attach things to wire with chocolate or put the wire into the wet piece.

HTH!

Jen

I have to do a "Thank Heaven for Little Boys" cake with a moon on top. I, too, was going to use a gumpaste moon. But I wanted it to be big enough for the baby to lay on and have facial expressions, so it became HEAVY. I didn't want to have to support it with dowels, so I changed my game plan. I decided to go with a double sided cookie pop. I can decorate one side, leave it to dry and then do the other. I figure it will be much lighter and just as cute. I also changed my sleeping baby to Aine2's little boy wrapped in a blanket.

Just a gumpaste alternative.

HTH

How thick would you suggest I make the moon?

I guess what I'm asking is how do I get the moon to stand as a topper?

For the moon, cut out your pattern and make it about 1/8 inch thick. Let it dry completely for a few days. Once it is dry, attach a sucker stick or skewer to the back using royal icing. Make sure the stick supports the entire length of the moon from the top to the bottom to keep any piece of it from snapping off.

For the stars, I take the floral wire and curl the end of it into a loop. Then I take two stars and sandwhich the wire in the middle of them with piping gel or whatever. Make your stars thin enough to compensate for the weight of two of them.

I do it all the time like that and never had a problem.

I've done the moon. I made it out of gumpaste, laid it flat, added a long lollipop stick to the back, so that at least 4 inches go into the cake for stability. I attached the stick by adding two rectangle strips of the same gumpaste, one at the top of the moon and one at the bottom (it's in my pictures). I made sure to let it dry for at least two days face down before turning over and letting it dry a couple of more days facing up.

avenje! Your mother goose cake is adorable!!!! How did you tie the star to the moon?

i would make with gumpaste wait till completely dry then take two 18 guage floral wires and heat the ends with a lighter until red hot and insert in the bottom of your moon, they will melt in and the melted gumpaste acts as glue, once they are set in and you are ready to insert i would also pipe some RI under the moon to stick it to the cake. if it is a large moon then i would steer away from a solid gumpaste moon and i would use styro covered in gumpaste, very sturdy very light, very easy to work with. i would get one of those rings made of styro that kids use to make the rings of saturn for planets (craft store) carve to corect shape insert two skewers in the bottom for insertion into cake, then roll out your gumpaste and stick on with ether fondant glue or (i prefer) copha (crisco) you can also use this to smooth it over and seal any seems leave to dry and voila! i use this method all the time for my figures I am currently constructing a plane for a wedding topper (old style plane with bride and groom sitting in it) and it is about 7" long and wide (wingspan) so anything apart from styro would be to heavy.

Oh, good idea. Thanks.