Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi..I have read in many online cake forums that you should never place wire directly into cakes be ause of the small risk of lead poisoning. Most of these sites are American ad they say you should always use a posy pick instead. On many of the tutorials on here..handbag and guitar the wires are placed directly into the cake..I am now slightly concerned. Can someone please assure me this is ok to do.

Thanks

hi Gucci906,

we ensure that our wires are treated then wrapped in florist tape to avoid direct contact with the cake. But you are right there is some disapproval of wires in cakes, but treated in the correct way there would be no risk.

Hope this helps. Px

What is the best way to treat wires. Sorry I have just joined and just reading all the comments x

we were always taught to take green floral tape and bind the flowers together and leaving 2-3″ of stem insert into a drinking straw or flower spike, but then someone else said they could be dipped into paraffin wax and since the floral tape has the paraffin wax- it seems that step would be the same as what is being used in a lot of the lessons. Ron Ben Israel takes the stems and dips them in white chocolate and then inserts them into the cake, and that seems like a good alternative for those who are squeamish about just using the florist tape alone.

Hi claire1986

Welcome to the site. Reading through comments in Q & A is a great place to start as you begin to get to know the site. The search facility is worth using if you have queries and of course the Q & A page is where to post for anything you can’t find or if you want to ask your own questions. It is also the place to post any information or share experiences which may be of interest or help to other members.

The saga of wires in cake has been discussed on the site quite often. In the earlier tutorials Paul has used wires directly into cake but that was before new rulings from the Food Standards Agency which prohibited the practice. The FSA does not permit wires to be placed directly into cake for reasons of metal contamination.
Last year I was speaking with an FSA officer who advised to place wires, whether they are covered in wire wrapping or not, in a recepticle such as a posy pick or a straw to make a barrier between cake and wire.
If you take a look at this answer, you’ll find other links within which may be of some interest:

Exploding cake

Unfortunately the FSA site isn’t very easy to negotiate on this subject. Information is spread across all different parts of their site and finding relevant material is like looking for a needle in a hay stack.

Hope some of the above informations helps.