I’ve been making some paper flowers to use on cakes, and based on the number of people who have bought them for me, they’re a good option for wedding cake decorations.
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Paper flowers don’t have any pesticides on them.
For anyone who has reservations about using them, I ask you this…Why not use them, if you would use fresh flowers?
Real flowers are a lot dirtier, plus, they have pesticides on them.
(For an article that shows some cakes with fresh flowers and talks about the precautions to use with them, click here.)
Oh, you put something between the flowers and the cake? Then do the same thing for paper flowers and you should have no issues with it.
(For a cake with fondant ribbon roses, click here.)
Do cake flowers really have to edible?
Yes, I prefer to have everything on a cake edible, but honestly, if gumpaste has wires in it, is it really “edible?” And if it doesn’t, would you want to eat it anyway?
The best idea would be to have all flowers made out of chocolate with no wires, but that isn’t done too often and it doesn’t work in hot weather.
And wafer paper can make pretty flowers, but it’s sensitive to moisture, so humidity can really make the flowers sag and wilt.
Real paper or crepe paper is a good option for all types of weather, and paper flowers can be made to look very realistic.
Paper can be colored with food coloring.
For the yellow dahlia flower, I used a heavy-duty crepe paper and colored it with food coloring so that I wasn’t adding dyes that weren’t food-safe.
The white paper flowers are either tissue paper, coffee filters, or cardstock.
These can be made with non-toxic glue, and they’re fine to use with cakes.
Cupcake wrappers are made from paper, so if you’re really concerned about it you can use those to make flowers!
Paper flowers aren’t weather-dependent.
Paper flowers won’t wilt like fresh flowers, they won’t melt like chocolate flowers, they won’t sag in humid weather like fondant or gumpaste, and they’ll look the same regardless of whether it’s hot or cold outside.
Any cake flowers that are made of sugar are going to be potentially affected by weather or heat, so you have to plan for which ones to use at any given time of the year.
For paper flowers, you can make a bunch ahead of time and store them until you need to pull them out to decorate the cake. It makes it a lot easier to work ahead, and you can save time when you’re decorating the cake.
So try some paper flowers…They’re pretty and they’re not affected by humidity, so they work fine for outdoor weddings in the humid, humid summer.
