Can someone tell me the difference between buttercream and royal icings and when each should be used? I've only used bc on my cakes, but read that alot of you here use royal quite a bit. I was under the impression that royal icing dried pretty hard. If that's so, you wouldn't use it to ice the entire cake, right? Just for flowers? Also, does it dry so hard that you wouldn't want to eat the decorations made with royal? Thanks for all your help. I'm still very new to all of this.

Also, what exactly is colorflow and how is it used?

Royal icing does dry hard. It is usually for flowers. It is very popular in the UK to use royal icing to ice cakes, but I am told that it is not like ours. I saw in a book that they cover the cake in marzipan and then ice with royal. It doesn't dry brick hard, but hard enough so that you can handle it. You can eat it, it's sweet and it will crumble and break. Also, it's stiff and holds shape.

Here is some information on it.
http://www.baking911.com/decorating/cakes_royalicing.htm

Here is some info on color flow
http://www.baking911.com/decorating/cakes_terms.htm

Hope this helps

No, you really wouldn't want to ice a cake in royal....it is used mainly for flowers and such. The flowers made out of royal can be eaten, it's just like eating candy....the kids love it! Color flow is used for making decorations too...very similar to royal but from what I understand dries even harder. I use it instead of a Butter Cream transfer.....copy a picture of something I like, outline it, fill it in and let it dry, then place it on the cake when I need it......I also use it to do letters too......I have a cake picture, a drill team boot, that I used color flow letters on it you want to look.....my handwriting isn't always great

I thought that you couldn't use a color flow image on butter cream because it would break down and not stay firm?

I was thinking of trying it, but didn't want to have a mess on the cake and have to fix it.

How far in advance can you put the colorflow onto the cake?

CIndymm4,
how does color flow icing taste? do you have to take the design off before you cut the cake and eat it? do your customers like it??
i'm curious because that seems to me to be easier than a bct and i was thinking of trying it.

...which cake did you decorate with color flow???

I have two cakes under my pictures that have color flow.....I've done others but didn't take pictures The final course II cake, it has color flow birds on it and the drill team boot has color flow letters on it. I don't put color flow pieces on until the very last. They will eventually breakdown but it takes several days. Actually, as someone else posted, you can use royal the same way, just thin it down....I've done that too. It tastes just like royal icing.....I've read that the color flow dries harder than the royal, but to tell you the truth, I can't really tell a difference. I would treat a color flow piece the same way you would treat royal icing flowers, take it off to cut the cake if it's in the way....they are edible though.

Look at this picture, I didn't do it, but I remembered that I saw it last week, they used color flow for the decorations....I hope I copied this shortcut correctly, it should be of a harley emblem and flames.

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=coppermine&file=displayimage&meta=lastup&cat=0&pos=257