Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Ive just finished a wedding cake that had one tier of different sized silver balls to mimic really course, sparkly glitter. it did look sensational, but it was lots and lots of work. I had thought I could put royal icing on the cake in segments and then kinda “pebble dash” the balls all over, it didnt really work. Lots of white spaces. Then I tried putting them on to smaller pieces of sugarpaste attached with royal icing, then attaching this to the cake, this was probably better, but still found lots of them came away and I ended up putting lots on by hand …….for what seemed like forever!! Just wondered if any of you guys have ever done this and if so what method did you use?

Hi loufairy2

I did two similar things. One was sticking the balls with piping gel on to ribbon strips of sugarpaste, letting the ribbons set slightly and then sticking them to the cake. The ribbon strips didn’t have to be particularly long because once they were stuck on next to each other the join didn’t show. The other was covering the whole cake with tiny blossoms as the base for the balls.. I used the smallest of the blossom plunger cutters, once the balls were stuck on with edible sugar glue, the blossoms were barely visible.
Again it took ages! seems there may not be a quicker and less time consuming way of doing this and I certainly won’t be doing it again. I was soooo stressed out!!

thank you miwl, the stress was awful! i think the ribbons of sugarpaste is prob the best option, would you say piping gel rather than smearing royal icing on the ribbons?

I used piping gel because it’s clear and also because it doesn’t leave little blobbs. I must say I did have to keep going back and forth sticking bits back on. I can’t remember whether it was a Marina Sousa or Collette Peters tutorial where I saw this gel technique and thought oh what a good idea. Who ever it was made it look so easy, hummm, not quite so! If I were to do it again (which I won’t be) I’d use edible glue. I used it with the tiny blossom project, it was tedious but more reliable as far as sticking went. Royal icing would hold better providing you can conceal it completely under the balls.
I’ve just had a thought…… wouldn’t it be great if we could have clear Royal icing? Yes I know, I’m being silly!! x