I'm so giving up on FBCT's! I've not gotten a single one to work for me yet!!

I'm sitting here 45 minutes before my daughters birthday party and I tried to put my FBCT onto the top of the cake. It was frozen very well (almost a month because I was going to use it on a different cake but it got canceled).

When I try and peel back the wax paper, half the image is coming up with it and destroying the picture! It's going to look like horse crap no matter what ... but is there ANYTHING I can do to try and salvage any of it???

I don't know about salvaging this one but for future reference, smear a little of crisco on the wax paper first before you start. It will help it release better.

when i first saw your title, i thought it must have been the freezing time, -- too short.

but reading on, i realized that wasn't the prob.

did you do it (peel the wax paper off) super fast? as soon as you took it out, laid it on the cake in few seconds max, then quickly peeled off?
coz once the BC started melting, every second counts.. and it will stick to the paper (so i was told).

I use parchment paper instead of wax. Try that next time.

i used parchment as well (no wax paper on hand). however i believe they work the same.. and it is much easier to trace the character on wax than on parchment as wax paper gives more tracing clarity.

but i will have to make do with parchment as it is hard to find wax paper here.

I have found an awesome product for FBCT and any royal/colourflow work... they are the "look oven bags". They are clear plasticy bags that you can cut apart to make 2 sheets. They are folded but you can iron out the wrinkles.

You can find them with the seran wrap and foil in the grocery store.

They are clear and FBCT and colourflow work peels away like nothin'

You need to put the FBCT on your cake, then PUT IT BACK IN THE FREEZER!!!

I always open my freezer door and peel off the wax/parchment paper while the cake is still in the freezer and it helps.

Thanks for all the suggestions!! I ended up having to just rip it off and suck it up. It was horrible but it was for my daughter and as far as she was concerned, it was perfect and that's what counts!

I've tried parchment paper and had no better success! This is probably the sixth time I've attempted it and the MN Vikings cake in my photos is the only one that came off the paper even REMOTELY successful.

If I can convince myself to put all that work (they take me forever to make in the first place) into trying AGAIN .... I will try some of the other suggestions. I *thought* about spraying the wax paper with a little Pam to help it release but wasn't sure if that would affect how it set up and dried or not.

I may very well be pulling it off way too slow. I suppose I am pretty slow at it because I'm always checking to see if it's peeling apart underneath and seperating properly.

Sara, I'll look for those bags! They sound like they could be much better than wax/parchment!


Here's how my horrible FCBT turned out

I use a piece of plexiglass as my "hard" surface (versus a cookie sheet), and I tape a piece of acetate paper (what teachers use to write on overhead projectors) - that paper-sized film you can buy in a stationery department - to "draw" my FBCT on. Then, I can clearly see my FBCT while I am doing it. I just peek underneath the plexiglass, and I can see the "back" side of it, which will be the side facing "up" on the cake. Then, I can fix any gaps or squiggles. It also peels off fairly well. I have had an FBCT stick to waxed paper before (once - as I used to use it all the time) and I just lightly rubbed the waxed paper with my hand to warm it up a bit. I also had to peel off the waxed paper VERY slowly and use a spatula to loosen a couple of spots.

Hey Trina,

Other than the small bits of black icing on the cake it turned out pretty good. I was envisioning a bunch of smeared icing.

I haven't done a FBCT yet myself by just a few weeks for my DS's 5th birthday I did something similar. I made a stamp out of RI (my DS changed his mind so much about what he wanted this was a last minute decision). I piped the outline of the pic I was going to use onto wax paper the night before so that the RI had time to harden up and then used that as a stamp on the top of the cake. Then I painted the cake with BC icing. I haven't got a chance to post the pic but will soon.

It was the first time I tried this and it worked great. My icing and border, now that's another story...

I tried the FBCT yesterday for the first time and failed. I don't know what I did wrong with mine. I'm not sure if I didn't get it thick enough or what, but it didn't freeze. I left it in there several hours. I used the wilton buttercream recipe and I used the store bought black in the tube for the outline. I will try again sometime though, I really love the idea of it.

Vicki

VS8894 - Sorry I can't help with why your FBCT didn't work. However, I have heard from some people who found that using store bought icing, even as an outline, had trouble coming off the waxed paper. In fact, I have read about people who used store bought for only the outline, but filled in the FBCT with their homemade buttercream, and the outline stuck to the paper (but the rest of the FBCT came off??)

When I make an FBCT, it's ends up just shy of 1/4" thick - and I don't do the backing thing where you smear a coating across the back to the FBCT using whatever colour icing you plan on doing the cake top in. I just make the FBCT, and that's how thick it ends up.

VS8894

I had the same issue I too tried to cheat and use the tube black icinf and had the EXACTE same results. It has to be the tube!

Tracey,

I didn't do the back thing either, I wonder why it didn't really freeze though. What kind of buttercream did you use?

I guess next time I won't use the tube.

Thanks for the info.

Vicki

In the articles section for the FBCT tutorial it mentions which type of bc she used (there's a link to the recipe's section). She also mentions that if you use a different one than use atleast 1/2 butter to crisco ration for best release from the wax paper.

http://cakecentral.com/article12-How-To-Create-a-Frozen-Buttercream-Transfer.html

since in january i was attempting my first ever fbct, i followed the exact recipe on CC by cali4dawn.

for the outline i used wilton's black tube icing.

it was successful.

I use a hybrid of Indydebi's recipe, Sugarshack's recipe, and a bit of my own improvisation. I use 50/50 butter and hi-ratio shortening, with Indydebi's idea of a packet of Dream Whip and Sharon's idea of the hot coffee creamer as the liquid. Otherwise, just add the amount of powdered sugar I want.

I do FBCT fairly often and the reason you want a recipe that uses butter is that the butter freezes better than the crisco. Recipes that contain no butter don't freeze properly and then sometimes they don't work out. IT is best to leave them in the freezer for at least 2-3 hrs depending on how thick you make it and how cold your freezer goes but if it is left in there too long and you make thin trasfers, they tend to snap and fall apart.

Hmm ... well, i don't ever use butter in my buttercream so maybe THAT'S my problem! This last time I was using the 6 qt mixer adaption for Sugarshack's BC recipe that I found in the recipe section.

there are so many different variations of buttercream and ingredients so I can only speak from what I use and have found but I use a different b/c recipe typically one that uses half shortening and half butter for my transfers and then I use the whipped buttercream recipe for the rest of my cake. This recipe doesn't have any butter in it and when I freeze it, it will get cold but never really frozen and will stay somewhat soft and just ruin all my hard work when I peel off the wax paper