I am making a cake for my mother for her birthday and she wants a cake with a Styrofoam ball on top covered in fondant roses. Can anyone advise me how to do the ball with the roses? Do I need to cover the ball? will I need to attach the roses before they dry or leave them dry and then attach them. Any help is much appreciated, thanks

Use floral wire to wire your fondant roses. This will make attaching your roses to the styro ball much easier.

Make sure they are completely dry before you try to place them on the ball.

I would use a dowel rod inserted halfway into the styro ball, with the other half inserted into the top of the cake, to secure the styro ball.

Then push the wired roses into the styro ball.

You shouldn't need to cover the ball with anything if the roses are going to completely cover the ball. If you aren't planning on completely covering the ball with roses, you could maybe cover the ball in fabric using double sided tape. The fabric will still allow the wire to be pushed through into the styro ball.

Hope this helps

Lena

Hi Grainne, Lena's advice is perfect, and probably the best solution.  I do remember onetime where I had to do this for a cake at short notice and didn't have a ball-shaped cake dummy to hand.  I made a ball shape from tin foil and covered this in fondant, then used toothpicks to hold the roses in place.  It came out perfect, but would be much easier if you had the styrofoam ball. Good luck!

And don't underestimate the weight of the ball with the roses on it.

I covered the half styro ball with fondant the same colour as the cake so it was less noticeable if there were any gaps, and also so the styrofoam didn't touch the cake. Had a wooden skewer inseretd in the bottom of the styrofoam. I had wired the roses and inserted the wires into the ball.

I found it best to poke a hole in the styrofoam with another wire and inserting the rose into the hole.

Also, don't underestimate how many roses you'll need. I did an estimate that I thought would be pretty accurate and had less than half of the ball covered. It takes lots of flowers to cover one of those things.

Once I did covered  a styrofoam ball in fondant , glued roses on it with white chocolate.Went to bed after I finished -   in the morning all the roses were on the table, their weight pulled the fondant off the styrofoam .Had to re-do the whole thing , and this  I actually hot glued the roses onto the styrofoam . It was a wedding cake and I did not want to take any chances ! well , it worked :)) Maybe next time i will just glue the roses with white chocolate directly onto the ball .And yes , it is really heavy.Make sure you put dowels underneath the ball .

ALovely cake!

AI just put 3 straws underneath the ball + a center dowel. . Positioned and glued the ball with white chocolate :) HTH