OK, I once again made an attempt at making BC roses this afternoon. Not a success but not as much as a failure as they were before. Instead of being blobs of icing, they look like little cabbages. My question is this--I thought I had the consistency right but all of the top edges of the icing were jagged and choppy, not flowy and smooth. What's up with this?? Was my BC too stiff??
What was that saying again?? If at first you don't succeed....just lick off the icing??

Add piping gel to the icing. Just about 1 teaspoon. If you don't have it on hand, corn syrup will help that too.

I've been practicing roses for a year and had the same problem, until two experienced decorators told me to stop using stiff consistency, and do my roses in medium. They've each been decorating for 20+ years and said they've never used stiff, always medium, so I figured I'd give it a try -- and voila! my first try was 10 times better than anything I'd done so far.

I still use stiff consistency for the bases because I learned that having a good, solid base is another key to good roses. I tried someone's suggestion to use Hershey's Kisses for the base and once again it was a huge improvement. After doing a few roses that way, I was able to visualize the shape and density I needed for a base made of bc, and now can do much better roses (had to switch from the Kisses back to bc -- I was eating way too many of the Kisses ).

I've attached a picture of a cake I did last month -- it was the first time in a year that I was (90%) satisfied with my roses.

Hope this helps.

maryanne, your roses look great! i've only tried royal icing roses so far...all that work cheryl put into that tutorial about bc roses on a stick and i haven't tried it yet!! sorry cheryl! i will soon, i promise!!

That is a great idea about the Hershey kisses but I may eat too many too!!! I had always thought that my base might just be totally off base! I also suspected that my icing was too stiff, it just wasn't coming out right!
I think I'm going to try med consist. w/the roses on a stick tutorial! We'll see how that goes. THANKS to everyone who gave me ideas (and hope!)

lol fytar .. I just read your post .. I've done roses both ways.. Wilton's on the nail and on the dowel stick... I love the dowel stick method .. the roses are so much lighter and easier to make to me

I like the dowel stick method too. They are alot lighter because they don't have that big base underneath. My dowel roses are not as flat and my nail roses. I use a medium consistency also. But sometimes I like the jagged edges, depends on what type of cake I am doing.

mamafrogcakes: my roses have always been tall and cabbagey. i've never tried the dowel-method, but perhaps i should. i just don't like the idea of having a hole in the middle of the bud -- anyone know how to avoid that?

I've never tried applying icing to the tip of the dowel stick first.. but you could try that first... if you can make you first turn on the dowel stick tight enough, you probably wouldn't have a hole in the center of the rose.