I just consulted with a bride yesterday and she wants gold swirls on white buttercream. I wasn't sure if I should use royal icing or buttercream to make the swirls before painting them gold. Does it matter? Thanks in advance.

Royal icing melts when it comes into contact with butter/oil (this is why you have to make sure there is not even a trace of butter left in your mixer prior to making a batch of RI). Stick with buttercream!

I'm not trying to question your knowledge about royal icing melting when coming into contact with buttercream.

I'm just wondering then, how do people do a colorflow out of royal icing and put it onto a buttercream cake?

Yikes - I have no idea!! Maybe someone more experienced could chime in?

No offence taken; you have raised a good point.

Here's a photo of me painting silver onto BC piped hearts: http://cateritsimple.com/id11.html

I just let the swirls crust (took about 10 minutes) then painted them with the luster dust mixed with vodka.

I dont use RI for anything cake. Nothing.

I have done cake decor in RI. A matter of fact I just did a baby shower cake and the string work and the dots are in RI, no melting at all. I have heard about the grease breaking it down too but have not had any problems myself.

Indy, so in that picture, its BC that your are putting onto BC, let it dry and then paint it?

I love all your tips and new ideas, you are my "Cake Goddess"...lol
I have a son on his 3rd tour in Iraq, and a daug. also new in the Army...he loved my spiderman, batman, superman cakes, if he only knew the problems I had!!! lol

So please, I need to do a cake for this saturday, I would like to so something nice...scrolls, damask...BUT I ONLY WORK IN BC, fondant and I fight...so Help!!!! Im still new.

Hi, I'm NOT IndyDebi by any stretch of the imagination . But, in case she doesn't answer, I wanted to say that I have piped buttercream onto buttercream, let it dry, then painted it with luster dust mixed with vodka. I did the "50" on the anniversary cake in my photos this way. HTH!

what JGMB said!

Indy that recipe that I followed onto one of your links for smoothing icing....how many cakes will it cover?

You had said it was given to you 25yrs ago...and I copied to try it out ....

Here's a link indydebi's b/c recipe:
(You can save to your CC recipe file.)

http://cakecentral.com/recipes/6992/indydebis-crisco-based-buttercream-icing

HTH

it will easily ice an 8" round, including decorations and filling, with icing left over.

Indy, OMG I used your recipe for these cakes I had to do and I love your icing!!!! Boy does it crust big time!!!!! It crusted so good that I was able to Stencil on my cakes!!!! I used the same bc, I just thinned it alittle to stencil.
Now it did crust firm and hard, is it suppose to? or am I doing something wrong? lol...Have to ask!!!


I still have to work on the smoothing, tried the Mel. method and I still couldnt...I know practice, practice...lol

But thank you very much!!!! do you have a trick for making more BC? faster?? lol

I've "kinda"stenciled on my icing. The crusting can vary, depending on the amount of crisco you do or don't add. I'm betting that while the surface crusted really well, it was still nice and soft on the inside, right?

The mardi gras cake in my album is all piped buttercream and all the gold was painted after the BC crusted. I'm with IndyDebi..don't like the taste of RI so I don't use it on my cakes for anything.

Yes Indy!!!! I was afraid at first I must confess!!!!! Like more of a panic, cause I touched the cake after I decorated and it was ROCK HARD!!! Then I bumped it in error and nothing not a dent, and I thought OMG!!!

If his BC is rock hard, then that means that the cake is going to be hard...so the next day, OMG! I got so many calls, about how moist the cake was, tasted so good!...I was like are you sure type of deal. lol, The lady says, hey mom, this is the cake lady...the other woman comes up and says your cake was fantastic, it tasted so good, and very fresh.

SO YES, GOOD CRUST ON THE OUTSIDE AND VERY MOIST AND SMOOTH INSIDE! Wow!!! and it only took me like almost 3yrs to try your recipe, your the fourth one.
but now I have to try roses...