AI'm very curious about this and my google-fu is failing me. Over in the Cake Decorating forum there's a thread about favorite youtube videos. One of those videos features very intricate cakes with animal figures, all made out of buttercream. On a few of the cakes the decorator uses one of of those cone tools (the kind you'd use if you were making a gumpaste flower with large curved petals) to make hibiscus. The decorator makes it, then the video cuts away to him/herr placing them on the cake with a pair of scissors.

What I don't get is how the decorator removes them from the cone without any kind of "support". I stopped and rewound the video to see if there was parchment involved. I didn't notice any. There is nothing put pure hibiscus when they're placed on the cake, just like a rose you'd make on a nail or on a stick. The buttercream doesn't look particularly stiff. I am completely stumped as to how s/he does it.

My understanding is that you use the scissors for support.  If you slide them up the cone, you'll be able to lift the flower off and place it on the cake.  This is one of the popular methods for making roses, but I haven't seen it done with hibiscus before. 

do you mean a lily nail??

i was thinking maybe royal icing & it dried but if she was handling it with scissors...i guess it was piped fresh

there's different degrees of lily nails-- different depths--i don't think i've ever done that but i guess you could

i almost wanna make some buttercream & try it--i actually came across my lily nails recently and i know where they are!

a chocolate hibiscus sounds pretty good right about now ;).

the only way i can think of it working is with a more shallow lily nail and nice stiff icing

and the bottom of the flower might be piped thick but that kinda defeats the purpose of the cupped nail

where is this video?