I am making a (very 80's ) cake for a bride and she made a mock cake using dummies and fabric to show me what she wants. She used a thin (1/2 inch) ribbon around the middle of each tier and placed a string of plastic beads in the centre of the ribbon (yes, this is exactly what she wants!) I'm just wondering how I should attach the pearls to the ribbon? Would a very thin line of piping gel work and could I do this before attaching the ribbon to the cake? The cake will be covered in buttercream so I can't do too much pulling, etc. Thanks for any support/suggestions for this one!

I suggest using a non toxic glue like Elmer's school glue. A thin line to attach tthe pearls. It will dry clear. Test it on a small piece. The glue shouldn't seep through to the underside so it will not affect your cake at all. What kind of ribbon is it? I've used satin ribbon on my cakes with no buttercream bleed through. HTH

Thanks for your reply Iggy! I had actually thought about white glue - I'll try that. The ribbon (from what I can see in the picture) is royal blue satin ribbon.

Should work fine.

What about royal icing?

I thought of that too but I wasn't sure if it would work. I'd be afraid that after the RI dried, it wouldn't hold the pearls anymore & might just flake off the satin ribbon. Could try it though.....

Thanks for the suggestion of the royal icing but I am wondering too if the icing would dry too hard and not allow the ribbon to wrap around the cake properly? It's worth a try though!

honestly, I think your best best is going to be to measure the ribbon around a dummy cake or your cake pans, give yourself a couple inches extra and then sit down and sew the strand of pearls onto the ribbon. I think any kind of icing or even white glue will show a darkened area and look sloppy. You wouldn't have to sew EVERY pearl, just maybe one little loop ever 5 pearls or so should do it1

So I went shopping today and was getting discouraged because I couldn't find any strings of silver balls. Then I came across a clearance bin and found one roll of trim that is three rows of silver balls - the best part is that it's an iron on trim so I can simply iron it onto the ribbon!! Yeah!! Thanks again for all of your suggestions!!

I DO hope you post a picture of this!!

Well, here's the end result of this cake! The iron on ribbon with the 3 rows of silver balls worked perfectly and took just minutes to attach. Thanks again for everyone's responses

The cake looks great and how cool that you found the iron on ribbon with silver balls on sale.