OK...I have a wedding cake coming up which will be a buttercream covered cake and it will have drop strings going around each tier of the cake.  The bride would like the drop strings to be shiny silver.  I'm assuming the best thing to do is to pipe the strings with royal icing and them paint them with luster dust mixed with vodka.  Am I on the right track here?  I'm a little concerned that the drop strings are going to break while I am trying to paint them....Is there a less frustrating way to do this?  I've heard of using piping gel mixed with silver dust for piping, but I'm assuming that would be a horrible consistency for drop strings?  Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated!!!!

APersonally I would colour the royal icing grey and then dust with a pearl lustre dust to make it silver. If you paint liquid on royal icing it's going to melt. Have a play with it till you get the right colour grey for the silver.

If I dust it with the dry lustre wouldn't get all over the cake though?  It's going to be a white buttercream cake....

ANo it's not going to melt, you were exactly correct with your method, Hannah. I paint RI with vodka and color dust all the time, and there is no melting. Yiu certainly don't soak it, brush a light layer on.

AYou would certainly need to be very careful but if you are using a crusting buttercream you could cover the just under where you are dusting and just use a tiny amount at t time.

Just reading another post has made me think of this, have you thought of using silver cake lace? I have seen it piped to make a netting for a pirate ship cake and I'm thinking that maybe you could use it to pipe drop lines. It would be a total experiment but I can think why it wouldn't work. You would need to pipe it and leave it overnight to set up but I think it could work quite well. Oh got me thinking now lol

A

I stand corrected, listen to this lady, she is cake awesomeness :)

Thanks, AZ!  I'm just dreading doing it that way because I know there may be some breakage involved!  I foresee much frustration in my future...

Siany...thanks so much for your responses!  Cake lace?  I may have to check that out.  I've not done that before...

AHave you done royal icing stringwork on buttercream before? I was taught that it wouldn't work, royal icing will melt on the cream. Was I misinformed?

AI haven't personally tried drop strings on buttercream, but it should be fine. Royal icing only "melts" (technically it dissolves) in the presence of water. Buttercream should be pretty high in fat and should have the excess water that might dissolve the RI. I don't think I would put the finished cake in the fridge though, but then I don't put regular fondant cakes in the fridge and I know many from the USA do that.

Sorry to get all scientific about it, but in the absence of experience, sometimes it helps!

And as AZ says, no issue painting the drop strings, don't use bucketloads of colour/paint. The issue will be more the physical damage from painting because those suckers are so delicate,

Yes, I have done royal icing stringwork on buttercream before.  It works just fine.  I always let my buttercream crust well first though.  And like minniewog says, I don't put the cake in the refrigerator.  I am worried about painting and then damaging the drop strings, then having to do it over....There may be some bad language during this portion of the decorating!

So, since I have to paint the drop strings, if I use buttercream for the strings and let them crust....would I be able to paint the buttercream strings with lustre dust/vodka?  I guess I've been assuming they would break too easily....

That's why I thought I'd pipe in RI

I highly recommend practicing. Please don't wait until you are working on your ordered cake. By the time you are ready to make and decorate that cake it will take confidence to have a steady hand.

I haven't done it personally but I have heard of people putting glycerine in their RI mix so as to make it less fragile to work with - maybe look into that? 

Absolutely!  I always practice things I haven't tried before I do them on a wedding cake.  I did some buttercream drop strings yesterday and let them crust, then tried painting them.  It worked!  I think I will go this  route!

Thanks, bubs!  I will have to remember that for my RI stringwork in the future!  There is always something new to learn, isn't there?