Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi

doodlecake kindly responded to a query about attaching roses to a wedding cake and said she cuts off some of the bulk at the base of the rose to make for neater application. It sounds like a great idea but I’m not sure at what stage this should be done, given the time a rose takes to set between building up the petal layers. My roses are fairly large, and fear potential breakages. Many thanks xx

Hi bellescakes

If the flowers were made some while ago they will be set hard now and it will not be possible to cut the backs off. The best time to cut the backs off is as the flowers are made. Paul shows how to do it in the the rose wedding cake tutorial here
http://www.cakeflix.com/online-cake-decorating-courses/rose-wedding-cake/lesson-6-roses#ingredients
How many flowers did you make? and how many will you be attaching on the edge of each tier?
Sometimes it is possible to chisel some of the back petals off without causing too much damage, it just depends how well they’ve been stuck on.
I’m just wondering whether you may have to make smaller ones if all has failed and use the large ones for another project. I know how hard you’ve already worked! xx

Hi madeitwithlove

Thanks for your help once again. I looked at the rose wedding cake tutorial video 6 but could get no sound. Also the chocolate roses I think are made from moulding chocolate whereas mine are made from flower paste. As you know this medium needs time to set before adding more layers of petals so I can’t imagine the finished rose would be soft enough to allow the base to be trimmed. I am probably missing something but just where in the proceedings can the base be cut off please? I have made most of my roses from poly buds. Some came with wires and some without, in which case I stuck a cocktail stick into the bud which wasn’t much good as they mostly fell out. If I were to make a rose with say the first two layers of petals, 3 and 5, allow them to dry and then cut the bottom then surely the next size of petals would not have enough room to be fully placed on the rose. I don’t know how easy is it to slice through a polystyrene poly bud with hardened petals attached.

I have made 24 really nice roses to date and yes, I guess I will need to make some more with flat bottoms but just need to find out the correct technique first. I do feel quite demoralised to say the least, as I thought all the wedding cake roses were complete. On a positive note I have had so much practice with rose making now that It’s not been time wasted and my technique has improved so much that my roses actually look life like.

On another note please can you suggest what size of posy pick to go for for my roses? There rare quite a few different sizes and I am at a loss to know which would be the best to order.

Many thanks. xx