Can anyone please give me some pointers on how to make my buttercream look like fondant. I see so many cakes on this site that are done in buttercream but they are so perfectly smooth and even that it looks like fondant. Can anyone help? Thank you

Do a search. This has come up a number of times. If you are using a crusting b'cream, there is the hot knife technique, the paper towel method and the melvira roller method (this one is in "articles", I believe). If non-crusting, hot knife would work. There is also the bench scraper which would work with both. SugarEd productions has a DVD called "Perfecting the Art of Buttercream" you could try that too.

take a look:

Sugarshack's DVD will be the best $30 you ever spent. She shows step by step how to achieve perfect buttercream. After that, it's just practice practice practice. One of the biggest things for me was mixing your buttercream properly so that it is airless. Sugarshack shows how she does this on her youtube video (search sugaredproductions). Scrape with a boiling hot metal scraper and smooth with a viva papertowel. HTH

Just a tip to save you some money, don't buy the PC Green paper towels if you want to try the paper towel method. They look deceiving smooth in the package, but once you use it on the buttercream, a faint pattern shows up on it.
Since we don't have the Viva papertowel, which everyone on here seems to use, I thought I would take one for the Canadian team and try and find one. No luck so far with a smooth paper towel lol

Thank you so much to everyone. These are some great tips. I will try the hot knife method and the paper tower method. And thank you to my fellow Canadian, if I find a smooth paper towel around here I will let you know where.

Smoothing butter cream is tricky,

I have only made two buttercream covered cakes in my time - I am a fondant girl at heart but this was a request from the customer.

I tried the Viva papertowel method but did not like the pattern in the BC so I actually used a glove and smoothed it with my hand - it probably worked because it was a carved cake but all I can say is best of luck - I will be sticking with the fondant ! LOL

Here is the cake I did...... next time it will be in fondant.

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1521009.html

Best of luck,

Kim