I have a country-fied wedding cake to do in June, and my bride wants raffia at the bottom of each fondant-covered tier.  Looks cute!  She's fine with the real unedible raffia.  I was just wondering if there's such a thing as edible raffia, and if so, where to buy or how to make?

Thanks, fellow cakers!!  

no but i would try out some filo dough for that

i think i would butter it and fold it/roll it and bake it in the circumferences i needed--just for a small cake first to test

it might break-- but i would 'knot it' there where it breaks

or even bake it in pieces so it can be assembled with 'knots' at the joins

would have to be baked to each circumference if it even works ;)

it might not work but that's where my brain went when i read this

Roll out some fondant real thin, and cut strips with an herb mincer, or just roll a pizza cutter back and forth to make strips. 

Or if you're feeling adventurous, make some Sugarveil (tinted the appropriate color), and you can cut strips from that.

I would experiment with my clay gun first.  If you have one, there are a couple of discs that just might work. If that doesn't work then I think I would go the thin strips route like AZCouture suggested.

don't know if I would want to eat it or not, but I would try rice paper, to make it. You could use an Olfa cutter to cut it, and you might be able to  tie it, if your rice paper was pliable enough, not sure how you could get it to be more pliable,  but you might steam it, either with a fabric steamer, or putting it  on a large cooling rack, over a pan of boiling water, might work.

WOW!!! these are great ideas .....LOVE ALL the suggestions.  I wasnt the one who asked the question, but I had wondered about that myself a few weeks back.  I used real raffia.

Or cut these in strips:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00437EN2C/?tag=cakecentral-20+paper

or something similar (very thin, edible).

I've had the same request - but if I use the non-edible raffia, is it food safe to go on the cake? or would it be best to put it over some ribbon. It's going on a buttercream wedding cake, 3 separate tiers, rustic iced.

Would it be better to "make" it so that it's edible?

Here's what I ended up doing.  Found some burlap-type ribbon (WalMart).  Covered the back of the ribbon with some buttercream.  Wrapped the fondant-covered tier with the burlap ribbon.  Wrapped and tied the (real) raffia around the burlap.  That way, nothing non-edible/non-food-grade was touching the cake.  Worked pretty well, and the burlap ribbon actually helped hold the cake together, as it was in a hot, non-air-conditioned barn!  Hope that helps a tad!

Glad I could help!  I'm pretty sure I found the ribbon at WalMart.  You might find it at JoAnn's or on the internet.  One big reason I put buttercream on the back was because the burlap ribbon had a funny (chemical-like?) smell.  So beware!  

AI'm in the uk so none of those for me, but, good old eBay! Thanks again!

Hope it goes well!  Post a picture!  Please!

I would love to see edible rafia too. I think the filo would work, but does it shrink when it bakes? you could wrap it around a cake pan to get the size and shape before baking.

Maybe I will test this.