Hello! Could someone please give me advice on how to achieve perfectly smooth icing on the sides of round cakes using buttercream icing. Thanks

Hi and welcome!

Here's a link to the search forum area, type in 'smooth buttercream' and lots of good threads pop up
http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-fsearch-results.html

And I must recommend one of our forum superstars DVD's
http://www.sugaredproductions.com/buttercreamdvd.html

The DVD has rave reviews from fellow CCer's!

I am new to the baking scene but the easiest way for me is a cake turn table and a bench scraper, just hold the scraper to the side of the cake and spin the table, taa daa! for the top I do the same but set the scraper in the middle, you get a bit of a 'whirl' in the center but it's still pretty smooth!
Hope this helps!

Check out tonedna's tutorial on Youtube-how to ice a cake. It's great!

sugarshack's bc dvd is the absolute bestwit, so good in fact you can get out your supplies adn ice a cake with it playing. she 's detailed, explains it perfectly and has wonderful tips and tricks.

www.sugaredproductions.com

nothing and I mean NOTHING beats Melvira's paint roller method! I've been doing cakes for 25 years ... just discovered this less than a year ago and I now wonder how I ever survived without it!!

I'm tellin' ya, you'll never use anything else once you experience the magic of melvira!!

Melvira's roller rocks but, if you want sharp corners you can't beat sugarshacks method she teaches on her DVD.

I use both Melvira's method and Sugarshack's - both work wonderfully.