Howdy y'all,

I have a rookie question for all of you experts.

I almost always ice my cakes with the icing tips and always end up with less icing on the edges of the top of the cake no matter how hard I try not to.

Do you have any good tips to keep me from doing this?

TIA

Christy

If it happens on sheet cakes, not to worry--your border will cover it.

If it happens on tier cakes or layer cakes and you aren't planning to cover the seam with a border, it probably occurs because you're scraping off too much buttercream when you ice the cake.

Hi, go to edna's (c/cer) website, designmeacake.com. She is teaching how to apply buttercream, smooth it ,etc. it is great. She has several tutorial and recipes,etc. they are great. hth

Are the sides of your pans straight? Are you holding whatever tool you are using to smooth straight?

If you can nest your pans inside each other, they are not straight edge. Some Wilton pans can nest.

Try a bench scraper. Most are a pure rectangle shape and you can place it on the turntable, with the long side against the cake, give the turntable a spin and scrape the excess icing. If you're using an icing spatula, its easy to have some 'give' in your wrist action without knowing it.

The Wilton 9 inch round cake pans in particular do not have straight sides at all. If you have two of them, stack them bottoms together then step back and take a look. I found 9 inch round Magic Line pans at Sur la table two weeks ago if you need a recommendation for different pans.