Ok, so when you decorate your cake, do you ice it and decorate it on your final cake board, or do you move it after your finished? I ask this because I use floral foil a good bit, and notice that I tend to get a lot of extra icing on my foil which doesn't come off that well. Anyone have tips on how to keep my covered board looking fresh and clean?

You can slide strips of wax paper under the edges of the cake, then remove before you place your border.

I used to decorate it on the final board, but I have recently changed that. For BC cakes, I final coat it (on top of parchment paper for easy moving), then put it on the board and decorate. For fondant, though, I tend to base coat first, place on board, then cover in fondant so I get it as seamless as I can, esp. if I am not putting a border.

Hope that helps. I would be curious to see what others do. Good question!

I crumb coat first, then put the largest tier on the final board and final coat it there. I do the other tiers on those plastic cutting boards that you can get from the dollar store, final coat them there, then just move them around on those until I stack the cakes. I decorate after everything's been stacked or put on the final boards if they have pillars and are on plates.

I ice on my turntable then chill the cake so I can move it to the finished board and then embellish. For fondant I do the same.. place the cake on the counter and cover in fondant and then move to the finished board. I cover all of my base boards with fondant so icing on the finished board would be out of the question as it would mark them up.

I ice my cakes on the final board. I fill and stack my cakes on a cake board the same size as the cake. I then move that to the cake board I have covered with decorated paper and clear contact paper. Any excess frosting that gets on the cake board is easily cleaned because the contact paper can be wiped clean.

I also use wax paper under my cakes works very well.

I ice and decorate directly on the board...don't have trouble with excess icing.

There are exceptions for sculpted cakes when necessary.

For those who say they ice on a turntable, cutting board, etc., and then move to the final cake board: How do you do this without messing up the perfect icing/fondant job you just did? Just curious.

I chill the cake and move it to the finished board with a spatula. It's easy and I have never messed up an icing job. I use SMBC, but any icing should be fine so long as it's chilled well. For fondant I chill the cake before I apply the fondant.. smooth it out and trim it and then pick it up with my hands and put it on the board and smooth over anything that may have gotten bumpy, but usually there is no issue since the icing underneath is firm.

thanks, I have another zebra diva this weekend and want to avoid the messy board. I have used wax paper in the past, but will try it again and also the turntable idea. Thanks for all the responses!

Cookieman...You move it very carefully, that's all! I'm being serious, too. I don't have time to chill tiers in between the crumb coat and the final coat, so the icing is still soft, but I just move them carefully. There's usually a piece on the bottom edge that you have to fix, but it's never bad. I've done worse taking them in and out of the fridge, where my whole hand has smacked a cake pretty good and taken off a big chunk of icing...