Confused about which to use!?!?

[mtrulen]

I have three cakes to make for this upcoming weekend. I am really excited to get creative with them but I have a question. One of the themes is Elmo: for this cake I wanted to put crayon decorations coming out of the top of the cake on wire. I know I need to get florist wire but I can't decide if I should make the crayons out of sugar cookies or gumpaste. I have never attempted to do something like this and haven't ever worked with gumpaste. I would prefer to make small sugar cookies but I don't know if they will be too heavy. Also, can you put florist wire in the oven? Any help? I'm kinda starting to get nervous. I hope I didn't bite off more than I can bake! lol

[jeri]

I would use gumpaste. It is more stable. The cookies might be a bit harder to decorate. The gumpaste you can just paint. Be sure you do them a couple of days ahead so they have time to dry. Sounds cute!

[Amanda]

If you want it sticking out of the cake with florist wire, I agree with Jeri. Gumpaste is the way to go! You can do cookies if you use lollipop sticks...but that still may be too heavy and would shred the cake to pieces if they start to fall. That's a risk you'll have to decide if you want to make.
I always add the wired pieces last. Make sure the wire isn't excessively long, because the weight of the gumpaste will cause it to pull and tear the top of your cake up. (unfortunately I'm speaking from experience on that one! *sigh*....) You may need to add a little ball of fondant or gumpaste at the entry site of the wire for support.....depending on how heavy your pieces are and how long the wire is.
I don't think that florist wire is oven safe, but I've never tried it so I guess I can't really say for certain. You can also use beading wire (in the jewelry making section) which comes in pretty heavy gauges which is helpful for gumpaste.
Hope that helps!!
Good luck!

[mtrulen]

thanks for the info! i am really not sure what to do, i am way too scared to risk ruining a birthday party with a cake falling all over the place. the cake i am planning on making is going to be three tiers (10, 8, 6) and i was thinking about 8-10 small crayons along the top would look cute. do you have any other advice or tips on how i might go about doing this?

[Amanda]

Well, do you definitely want the crayons coming out of the top? You could always do sugar cookie crayons along the edge of one of the cakes. Is this the Elmo themed one? You could do the bottom cake blue, like Dorothy's fish bowl, maybe with graham crackers along the bottom of the cake. It would be pretty easy to do. Don't forget to add a Dorothy and some fishbowl decorations! Luckily her bowl is usually pretty bare...
The middle cake can be just plain white with cookie crayons all along the side.
And then the top cake could be just fun multi colored designs, like stripes, or dots, or squigglies...etc. You could either put a number of the topper, or maybe little toy figurines.
Just some thoughts....I hope they make sense. It works in my head, but that's not always an accurate tool...

[mtrulen]

thankyou so much for your help amanda! you have helped narrow down alot of my ideas! i was thinking about cookie crayons along the side of the bottom tier too! but i just love how the spiral wire comes out on the top of cakes....ive seen a couple of them so far, but just don't know how to go about it. yes the cake i'm trying to figure out is the elmo cake. the topper i have is the one where he is standing on top of crayons and holding a crayon in his hand.

[Jazz2U]

I think they sell crayon candles. Maybe that would work instead and be less work for you?

[mtrulen]

I have been looking everywhere for those darn crayon candles...3 walmarts, 2 michael's, and a hobby lobby)!! naturally, i didn't think about looking online until today and now it's too late for me to order them bc the cakes are for saturday!! eeek!

[jeri]

You could do the top tier in Rice Krispy treats and that would be strong enough to handle the wires coming out the top with the crayons. Just a thought!