Try as I may (for over a year now) I cannot seem to get my icing to smooth right! I've tried different icing recipes, hot spatula, viva method, EVERTHING that I have heard of to try to get it to do right and it just DOESN'T! I also have a problem with the top edges. How do you get them to not tower over the top or hang over the edge? WHAT am I doing wrong?!?!?! ANY suggestions, please!!!!!

Have you watched Sugar Shack's video? You can buy it from kitchen krafts.com. She has some AMAZING tips, it helped me so much.

I too still cant get my edges as crisp and smooth as she does, still practicing!
The best things I learned from her were:
Fill the icing to the top of the mixer and let it run for a while.
Always put the spatula back in the hot water before letting it touch the cake again. Every time into the hot water.
Use a small spatula instead of the large one, it give so much better control.
I'll be anxious to see if anyone can give some more advice, I'm always looking for new techniques!
Lisa

If I am trying to get my cake to look really smooth I will place it in the refrigerator for an hour or so to "firm" up. Then I will to the warm spatula trick. Another thing that helps with my buttercream is to let it mix for about 10 minutes as fast as my mixer will go. Also, I think someone suggested adding corn starch to the buttercream for added stability. Not sure if this is something you already are doing or not. Just keep practicing and find something that works for you! Good luck!

i struggle with this too but ive started using the viva paper towel, but instead of using my hand i smooth it with my fondant smoother, it worls but it still isnt super smooth.

I used to get my icing really smooth, while I was taking the Wilton classes. Now it's like I'm getting worse & worse!! I can't get it smooth to save my life now. I'm wondering if it's the recipe I'm using. It tastes way better than the class buttercream, but doesn't look as good. I don't have any answers for you but I'd sure love some tips too

I have the same problem as you, melissablack. When I was making all shortening BC in classes, I could smooth it fine, but it was greasy (using Crisco, which I now don't use in favour of hi-ratio, thanks to Sugarshack). Now I use a half-butter, half-hi-ratio blend, and the taste is much better. It crusts well too, but smoothing it is tough. When I use the hot spatula, I can smooth well for a while after crusting, but there comes a time "of no return" when I will try to continue hot spatula smoothing and the icing won't respond, it wrinkles and crinkles - even the colour in the icing (if I'm using a coloured icing) will start to marble. I always figure that it's the butter, melting, hardening, melting, hardening as I hit it with the hot spatula. In any event, I can't get this icing as smooth as I could the class BC. I'd love to hear some ideas as to why ...

Don't know if this will help but I've posted a couple of video's on youtube, one for smoothing a cake and another with my frosting recipe:

I just used a sponge paint roller to smooth my last cake & it did a great job. The 6" works perfectly on the sides but I wish I could find a long one for the top so I could make one swoop without leaving lines to smooth out. Still had to use the paper towel to do that.

I agree with lchristi27 sugarshack's dvd is the best. It has ways to smooth that you prob have never seen before. I love it, it has changed my cake world!!


Here's an link:



http://www.sugaredproductions.com/buttercreamdvd.php