I read Antonia and Shirley's tips on smoothing IMBC in another thread. I bought the paint scraper and gave it a go last night. The tip on smoothing being about removing excess icing is great.

So, I kept smoothing that icing right off the cake, LOL. I get obsessed with getting a smooth cake. Once I was somewhat happy with the sides and started on the top, I would mess the sides up again. DH said he thought he would wake up in the morning and find me still in the kitchen smoothing away, LOL. I finally gave up, got it as smooth as I could and went to bed.

Any more suggestions for next time? This cake is going to be as is, hopefully the scroll work will cover some of the flaws. I can't use Shirley's tip on the flame thing since my oven is electric.

You can use an electric burner as well, it is just heating the blade till warm, not steel melting hot. I get the sides and edges as smooth as possible and then pull icing in towards the center of the cake. I spend a lot of time fussing with the top of the cake when in most instances it is covered anyway, either flowers, baby shoes, etc.

Thanks Shirley,
I may get brave enough to try it on this cake. I have used a spatula dipped in hot water before, but I get the problem with the color messing up. How do you avoid this? Is it just that your spatula is barely warm?

Thanks again, I have used so much of your advice on here and keep reminding myself that you have been doing this for years so I shouldn't expect to come close to the quality of your cakes!

Are you wiping the spatula dry? Getting any water on colored buttercream will change the color and make it look splotchy. I have to be honest and say that I have not colored any IMBC in dark or bright colors for icing a cake so I am not sure how it would effect the color using the warm scraper.

Yes I do get the spatula dry. The cake I am working on is chocolate. Last night when I tried the hot spatula it ended up darker in places. I was reading one of your other posts about this and I think maybe since you put it right back in the freezer, it doesn't have a chance to effect the color.

And yes, I would have to say I don't get much practice. My kids come before cakes right now (something about a 4 yr old and a 2 yr old hovering over my cakes makes me nervous!) and I have been battling a severely herniated disc. I had been doing ok for a couple of months so I agreed to do this cake. Of course last weekend I could barely walk!! So probably no more cakes for a while.

As far as artistic talent, I don't feel that I have any, but I do enjoy doing cakes and I don't charge, I just do it for fun.

Thanks so much. I was able to get it pretty smooth using a scraper, then dropped the top tier in the floor . I think this cake will be going in the cake disaster file, but it all came together in time for the shower.