AI am trying to recreate this beaded design on a cake tier. It looks like they are glued on one by one but I'm not sure. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. [IMG ALT=""]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3152546/width/200/height/400

I'd brush on piping gel and apply by the handful.

I would have the balls glued to a band of fondant, so the entire thing can be easily un-wrapped before cutting, since I wouldn't serve those to people...

...and I would apply the balls (to the bands) on a flat surface, maybe on a large cookie sheet, so they wouldn't go flying everywhere.

I just read a thread about doing this.  They took wax paper and sprayed a bit of cooking spray on it then pressed it on top of a plate that had the pearls and when they lifted it up the pearls stayed on the paper.  The just press it into your cake (you'll probably have to brush piping gel on the fondant covered cake first).  I haven't tried it yet but will.  I have done this type of cake before and put the pearls on by hand and let me tell you it took forever and was super messy and still did not get the desired look exactly.

A

This is the quickest way to adhere the balls or dragees to your cake! I learned this technique from Craftsy tutorial that Mariana Sousa demonstrated, she lined cookie sheets with parchment and laid the fondant bands side by side. She used a thin layer of bc or royal, you can use whatever you want, then sprinkled and gently pushed the dragees on the bands.

It worked beautifully. The cookie sheet caught the extra dragees & the parchment acted as a funnel which made clean-up easy.