I'm making a cake this week with stars sticking up out of it. What do I use to hold them up off of the cake like fireworks? Is it a floral wire?

Also, what's the best kind of cake for 3D type cakes. I hear sponge a lot. Is that the best as far as staying firm and in tact?

For making the starts sticking up...use floral wire, but make sure you either have coffee straws to insert them in or cover the end with melted chocoalte. I've used the candy like for covering cakeballs.

I use regular cake, but a lot of people use pound cake to do a 3D cake, since it it more firm.

yep for the ends of the wire, you dont want the wire directly touching the cake, for food safe purposes of course

I don't think sponge cake will be very good for a 3D cake. Pound cake or any other type of dense cake will be the best.

I use regular butter cakes for sculpted cakes all the time. Pound cake isn't necessary, but don't use a straight mix.

For the question about the stars, use the floral wire and use coffee stirrers to keep the wire from pushing directly into the cake.

For the other question about the cake, I would use a firmer cake like a pound cake but if you don't want to and want to use a box cake, add a small box of instant pudding to the cake mix when you are adding the eggs, oil and water and this will make the cake mix a bit more dense. HTH

I do what dorie67 said about the stars! Good luck!

I tried coffee stirers, and it didn't work at all. They came right out of them, and they left huge holes in the cake because it made a larger hole than what the wire is, so it didn't look as good. I felt horrible because I had to tell my friend that there were coffee stirers all in the cake and to be careful before taking a bite. Is there some kind of trick to that?

Yeah put chocolate on wires and just insert them directly in the cake. Like I said earlier in the post, I use the candy melts and to put on the wire and that way they can just go directly in the cake with no extra holes from the coffee straws.

Wilton makes flower picks that you can also use for this purpose. I used one in a cake I made that had stars on wires. I filled it with fondant. The wires did move, though, because the hole widened. Next time I might try it with melted chocolate. That might set better so the wires wont move. Maybe someone else has better advice on that.

I go with the coffee stirrers and melted chocolate! Works like a charm.

i would like to know.. when you pull the chocolate coated wires out of cake... is the chocolate still in tact.. does the moist cake...lots of people.. including myself.. have different kinds of filling... does the moist cake not soften the melted chocolate.. to some degree.. does the wire not come in contact with the cake if this happen.. i do not know .. i am only wondering.. please help with this answer.. tia

Yes, the chocolate is still intact - shouldn't pull out of the coffee stirrers at all.

ok... jan14grands.. understand you... but... baycheeks1... says.. she puts chocolate directly on wires and inserts wire into cake.. not with the stirrers.. help me there, please.. to understand why the moist cake wouldn,t melt or soften the melted chocolate.. thanks

oops sorry, misunderstood the question. I've never tried inserting them directly covered in chocolate. But I do know that the chocolate sets up rock hard. Don't know if it would soften or not.

Think about chocolate covered cherries. Filled with liquid, never affects the chocolate shell. Chocolate is basically fat based and will repel most liquids, not absorb them.

Though if you use bare wire the chocolate doesn't get as good a grip on that as on the floral wire that is wrapped in tape. I have had an occasion or two when I pulled out a bare wire which just slipped out of its chocolate shell, leaving it in the cake. When I use wrapped wire, that never happens.

Thanks baycheeks1 for the chocolate idea. I never though of that although I use melted chocolate as glue on cakes all the time (tip from Sharon Z). The chocolate sticks bouquets to fondant and they never come loose so I'm sure no soft, moist mixture would 'unstick' the chololate.

I agree with the chocolate.

thanks everyone for your answers.. i work with chocolate also.. like sharon does for glue, etc.. but never put it on wires into cake..but i will try this method in the future.. thanks again..i always use g/p wires that are covered... never from michaels in the floral section. i was taught that way 14 yrs. ago.. and that is what i do..

Make sure you use a strong enough guage wire, or else the weight from the accent on top will pull your wires down and damage the cake.