DIY Strawberry Dipped Centerpiece and Tower of Roses - Streusel Cake (2023)

A fancy edible centerpiece made with dipped strawberries and organic roses is easy to make at home with a Styrofoam florist cone. Place them on reception tables as wedding decorations or make a sweet gift for someone special.

Months before I'm supposed to bake a wedding cake, I go into research mode. My desk is littered with cake magazines and I check wedding websites to see what's new in cake design. I'm making two wedding cakes this year, so I've been looking twice. (And imagine the disaster to come!) One thing that kept getting my attention was not a cake at all, but a centerpiece.

Strawberry Towers (also known astrees) are not a new idea. They seem to have been around for a while, but the new addition of fresh roses and greenery makes a very pretty centerpiece.

Some fancy bakeries have these towers available to buy for around $200 for a 10-inch tower (like the one I made here). I think the price is justified if you don't have time to make one yourself, but I have to tell you that this DIY version costsMETROuchany less!

I bought two dozen roses for this project in two different colors. I didn't use all 24 tower buds, but it was nice to have a variety of sizes and colors to choose from. Organic roses do not contain pesticides, so I suggest looking for them. Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are good places to look for them and are less expensive than florists. The tower holds about a pound of dipped strawberries, but I suggest buying two pounds so you can pick the best berries from the two containers.

I couldn't find many tutorials on how to build a strawberry tower and the ones I did find had the berries sticking out at weird angles. Ideally, the berries should face up so that they have a rosebud shape. After a bit of experimentation, I figured out how to achieve this look. The following tutorial is my own method.

1. Pick only the prettiest and most pristine berries first. Remove the green tips and wash and dry them well. Line up the berries from smallest to largest on a sheet of parchment. Melt 12 ounces of vanilla (or white chocolate) caramel wafers and dip each strawberry into the caramel. Leave a small portion of the strawberry uncovered at the back of each berry (see image 1). Place them on the parchment and let them sit until set, about 1 hour.
2. Choose an 8-inch serving platter or rimmed cake stand. Place some of the leftover caramel melt (about 1 tablespoon) in the center of the plate.
3. Press the bottom of a 9 × 4-inch florist's Styrofoam cone into the center. Leave until set.
4. Cut a rosebud head from its stem and dip the end in melted caramel.
5. Place the flower head on the base of the cone with the melted candy stick touching the cone.
6. Repeat the process, alternating the roses with the macaroons. Do not use candy melts on the macarons, they should be easy for guests to remove from the arrangement. The background of the arrangement I did only with macarons and roses.
7. Insert a toothpick into the cone just above the bottom row of flowers/macs at an upward angle. Start with the largest dipped strawberries and thread one onto the toothpick. Thread it through the nickel-sized open space on the back of each berry. Position it so the pointed end of the bur is pointing up instead of out.
8. Repeat the process alternately with roses in the same way. Continue to the next row with just strawberries, using smaller berries as you work your way up the cone. I added a few more roses to about 1/3 of the top of the tower, but you can just use berries if you like.
9. A larger, blooming rose can be used for the top of the tower. Insert a toothpick into the top of the cone and thread through the rose. There will be some spaces between the berries. Place individual rose petals between the berries and anywhere the Styrofoam cone will show.

Here are a few more tips/things to keep in mind when undertaking this project.

• Choose roses with dense buds. You want the shape of the berry and the shape of the rose to be almost the same.
• Faded or overgrown rose heads can be trimmed by plucking off some of the outer petals.
• The Styrofoam cone can be covered with plastic wrap before adding the berries if desired.
• You may need to change the position of some of the toothpicks when placing the berries on the tower. If you need to pry a toothpick out of the foam, hold the top of the tower down as you do so. The candy will definitely hold the cone in place as you work, but it's not super glue.
• The tower can be made a day ahead and refrigerate overnight.

I think the total cost of my tower was less than $40 not counting the pie stand I already had on hand. Roses made up the majority of the cost ($25), and 1-pound baskets of berries were readily available at the grocery store (BOGO!). Store-bought macarons can be expensive, but I only used six. Candy coating is usually around $3 a package and can be found in the baking aisle of most craft stores. You can find most of what you need locally, but I'm including some quick shopping links so you can be sure what to look for. I've also included the link to the cake stand I used.

9 × 4-inch green Styrofoam cone

White Vanilla Candy Melt

8-inch galvanized cake stand with raised rim