I made a 16th birthday cake last weekend, and wanted to add curled wires coming out with fondant balls on the end (like you see on Ace of Cakes so often). Due to lack of time to experiment with bending my own, I bought a pack of the Duff ones at Michaels (with a coupon of course).

Made the balls no problem, but when I placed one in the cake it started tearing as the weight of the ball pulled it over. I had tried to place it so the weight was already balanced, so I'm wondering if they were just too heavy. They weren't very large; probably about the diameter of a nickel, but solid fondant/gumpaste.

Any suggestions? Do you use something else (like RKT) covered in fondant, so they are lighter? TIA for any help!

I had this same issue a couple of weeks ago with a cake I did. What I ended up doing, was putting a couple of drinking straws in the place where I wanted the wires to come out from, so they sat in the straw, instead of just the cake alone. It helped a lot!

Coffee stir sticks work well too because they're smaller than straws but still hollow.

I just watched a video yesterday that Duff Goldman made about his wires and how to bend them before putting them into the cake...HTH

http://www.duff.com/products/uniquely-duff/duff-decorative-cake-wires

How come he puts wires straight into cakes? I thought this is one of the biggest no no's?

Just watched that video, and he does put the wires in the cake, Why????

Perhaps he has special food safe wires? I dunno, But for that, you do need a heavy gauge wire , as well as a support for the base of a wire, I usually use a drinking straw, filled with royal icing which i poke the wire into , once the royal is set, the wire is held in place.

There is another thread I've been following on here on the subject of putting wires in cakes. One of the CC' ers e-mailed Duff's company to inquire about the safety of his wires and the response came back that they were food safe...no other explanation, but that they were food safe.

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=6965355

As for his video, he doesn't mention it, but if you notice he has a mound of gumpaste or fondant balls in the centre of the cake after the wires have been inserted and he points to them on the picture of his "plan" at the end of the video too. I have purchased the wires and they are very heavy. To date I haven't used them but I would think you would have to have a dense cake even with whatever type of supports you are going to use.

I let the balls dry out before putting them on the cake. The fondant is much lighter when it is dry, and therefore you don't have the weight 'pulling' the wires thru the cake. I use the same technique with all of my 'shooters' - stars, flowers, hearts, curliecues, etc. The coffee stirrers work great when it comes to needing things positioned perfectly, like a name. One of my cakes has the birthday girls' name spelled out on different circles - they were twisting around and I finally got a pic of it with each letter in place, but I quickly removed them and put in the fast-food stirrers - not straws - but the little stirrers that have 2 separate skinny openings in the same straw. The ones I have are red. Helped a TON! It's Emily's Cake in my pics - with a big cupcake on top.

Thanks for all the help! I'll have to try letting them dry a little longer, and definetly the straws/stirrers. Luckily I tired the first one in the back since I had a felling they may try to rip out. So the tear was small and not noticable. I appreciate all the feedback!

Kink/bend/or make a loop in the wire. Insert the wire into a straw or coffee stirrer. Fill straw or stirrer with melted chocolate or something that hardens. Stick it in the cake. That's how I do it.

With Duff's wires, do you know how many come in a pack? Thanks!

There are 8 wires in the pack.