hi there im making a wedding cake for my friend and she wants some swirl designs on the tiers. i was wondering if i should use colored buttercream icing or royal icing? the cake is going to be 4 tiers stacked on each other. please let me know! thoughts and suggrestions are very welcome! thanks!

Hi, I'm no expert but I thought I read somewhere that using royal icing on buttercream is no good. Forgive me if I'm wrong but I think that the shortening in buttercream breaks down the royal icing. I'm sure that if I'm wrong, our fellow CCer's will get you the correct info.

I use BC for everything ... icing, borders, flowers, roses, stringwork, etc. Never use RI on anything cake.

thanks so ,much guys!!!! i dont know where i heard using royal icing for the piping lol anyways i think ill definetly use buttercream

I think royal is used frequently for piping (my impression from reading other threads and watching the food channel), so it's not odd that you heard that somewhere. And because of the staying power of royal (dries hard, holds in place well), its a favored choice for intricate stringwork.

I've probably just not "graduated" up to that level yet!

I would say start with buttercream till you get the hang of it (easy to correct a boo-boo!), then try it with royal to see which you prefer.

i just did a b/c cake... used wilton impressions to make swirls.. and piped black ,buttercream swirls, on sides of each tier. the client wanted black swirls. it is in my pics.. hth

I think royal would work better over fondant, because the fat in BC breaks down the royal, and by that point you might as well have used BC in the first place.

Good luck and make sure to post pictures when you're finished!

I've used RI on buttercream quite a bit and haven't had any problems with it breaking down. It probably depends most on what you're comfortable with.

Just a friendly tip...if you have never done scroll work (swirls) before...it might be best for you to pipe the scrolls with the same color icing that is on the cake. That way, if you mess up...it is easy to correct and won't be obvious. I had never done scroll work before two weeks ago and did some ivory on ivory. It turned out awesome and it was so easy to fix my boo boos rather than if I had used a color icing on a light colored cake.

I apologize for my comment if you have already done this technique before. I just was trying to help out!!

I am sure it's gonna turn out AWESOME!!!

thanks for all your help guys! ill make sure to post pictures. and she wants a wine/burgundy color for the swirls but i think i will definetly need to practice on it. and ill see which icing i like better. and now that i think of it i saw it on Cake Boss he did a 7 teir cake for a bridal mag. and he used royal icing for the design he did and it was a swirl design.

another idea for colored swirls ..... do a base swirl, using like a tip 4, in white. Then do the burgundy on top of the tip 4 swirl using a tip 3. If you mess up, the base of the swirl is the same color so less mess, plus it gives it a nice 3-D look.

I use buttercream on buttercream and RI on fondant. =o)

you can use royal icing piping on a BC iced cake, it will not break down, that only happens when you mix it into the royal, like stirring the royal icing with a spatula you stirred your bc icing with. The royal pipes cleaner and flowsbetter out of the tip, for me anyway.

thats what i figured sweetcakes im just going to have to do a practice cake and see which one i like batter