When you put stems of real or artificial flowers, or the wires from gumpaste flowers into a cake, you need to be careful for a couple of reasons.
This article includes affiliate links that will pay a commission if they’re used to purchase something. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Don’t damage the fondant.
First, just randomly sticking something into the cake can ruin the icing or fondant, so pushing stems in can end up making a mess or crush the cake itself.
If the cake is cold it will be harder to push the stems in, and that can result in additional damage.
To minimize damage to the surface of the cake, use a wooden skewer to create a pilot hole, so to speak, then insert the stem into that hole.
It will prevent the fondant or buttercream surface from being punctured in an irregular way when the flower goes in.
Keep everything food-safe.
Second, when you put things into a cake you need to make sure that it’s food-safe and won’t end up being cut off and bitten into by a customer.
I’ve heard of people who have cut into wires and unknowingly served pieces of the cake with wire in it to people.
So when you insert anything into a cake, you want to make sure that anything that’s not food-safe is encased in something that’s fine to touch food.
Putting the stem into a drinking straw, a coffee stirrer, or dipping it into food grade beeswax is one way to create a barrier.
Make sure that fresh flowers aren’t toxic.
A lot of fresh flowers that are used in floral arrangements aren’t food-safe because they can leak toxic sap out of the stems.
On top of that, most commercially-available flowers have pesticides and fertilizers that shouldn’t be used with food.
If you think about it, would you want to drink the water that flower stems have been sitting in?
Probably not, for a lot of reasons, but sticking them directly into a cake is pretty much the same thing.
Wrapping the stems with plastic or using floral picks is usually the safest option,
Make sure that the flowers don’t touch the cake, and research whether the flowers that you want to use should even be used with food or not.
Use flowers that can hold up over time.
Flowers that have thicker petals, like roses, are better for use on cakes than flowers with more delicate petals.
That’s because they don’t need a water source to stay good-looking for longer time periods.
If you have flowers that can be attached to the cake with a big glob of icing instead of having the stems in a flower pick with water, you can avoid inserting stems into the cake entirely.
It’s a lot safer and less destructive for the cake if you don’t have to stick stems into the cake. Put them on the ledges of the tiers instead.
And using gumpaste flowers, like these cakes have, will guarantee that they won’t wilt over time.
