Small wedding cake sourcing (North London)

mazinmouse

If doing it yourself, you do have to be v careful putting fresh flowers on a cake. Eg Some lilies are v v poisonous and the idea of Ivy draped over and around the cake may seem appealing and stylish but Ivy is poisonous. A lot of flowers you buy will have been treated /sprayed with pesticides so not v savoury for a cake top.

And for heavens sake, for anyone using fresh flowers, if you cannot vouch that they are safe to put on the cake, make sure they are not in contact with the icing. Also never just stick a rose or other flower stem straight into the icing!

poppyscorner

sonnie I would quite like to see the cake it sounds rather unique.

OP I can vouch for the M & S cakes I had a 3 tier one in Ivory icing picked it up of the shelf in M & S and had the columns for spports we bought cake decorations of ebay burgandy and ivory butterflies and (false) calla lillies looked great and no one knew we hadnt had it specially made.

celyn90

mazinmouse wrote: »

If doing it yourself, you do have to be v careful putting fresh flowers on a cake. Eg Some lilies are v v poisonous and the idea of Ivy draped over and around the cake may seem appealing and stylish but Ivy is poisonous. A lot of flowers you buy will have been treated /sprayed with pesticides so not v savoury for a cake top.

And for heavens sake, for anyone using fresh flowers, if you cannot vouch that they are safe to put on the cake, make sure they are not in contact with the icing. Also never just stick a rose or other flower stem straight into the icing!

Yep - that's true - I used small plastic dishes and oasis and built the arrangement as I would a normal one, using non-toxic stuff - most of which was from the garden. Some companies make special cake vases for mounting fresh flowers. I have used ivy in the past, but it was spray varnished and never in contact with the cake surface. You shouldn't ever stick anything into the surface icing at all - inculding the wired sugar flowers - these ideally should be mounted, usually on a separate disc of sugar paste. This is not only for safety reasons, also because it is very easy to damage the surface of the icing on the cake and wreck the look of final product. The last set of arrangements I did doubled as gifts for the mothers, so another cost saved.