https://www.pinterest.com/pin/143270831873636966/

I'm doing this wedding cake for this weekend.  I've made a 10" "dummy" cake and have been practicing the stencil technique for hours!  I cannot get the stencil to go on the cake without  it either bleeding through or pulling off with the stencil.  I'm pretty sure it pulls off when my medium is too thick.  

My cake is frosted very smooth with crusting buttercream.  I have it in the fridge at all times until it comes out to be stenciled.  Yes, it's warm here, but the ac is on in the house.

I've tried stenciling with thinned and regular consistency buttercream and also with thinned royal icing.  I've looked everywhere on the net and here on CC for tutorials and tips on how to do this.  Can anyone give me an ideas on how to make this work????  It looks so easy!!!  What am I doing wrong????

Thank you for any help!

Christina

You could lightly hold the stencil next to the cake, mark the design with a scribe or toothpick, then hand-pipe over the design.

pastrypet,

Thank you.  Yes, I've thought that I could do that as a last resort.  When I get nervous, my hands shake really bad, so I'm really hoping not to have to hand pipe it all!!!!

:-)

pastrypet,

Thank you.  Yes, I've thought that I could do that as a last resort.  When I get nervous, my hands shake really bad, so I'm really hoping not to have to hand pipe it all!!!!

:-)

Use a piece of tulle between the stencil and the cake.  The icing goes thru the tulle so it stays in place when you remove the stencil and tulle 

kakeladi,

Thank you for your reply.  Does it matter how fine the tulle is?

What is tulle?

remnant,

Tulle is the material that bridal veils are made of.  You will also see it under a little girl's dress to make it stand out.

I tried the tulle, maybe I'm not doing it right, but it didn't work either.

What if I stenciled the pattern onto a piece of parchment paper and then transferred it to the cake?  Would the transfer need to be room temp as well as the cake, or should the both be cold?????

Surely there are more people on CC that do stenciling onto cakes....anyone.

Not sure why you are having so much trouble if you are using crusting b'cream.  How long did you let it set up before trying to stencil? 

If you try the parchment paper transfer I would freeze the transfer for an hour or so before putting it on the cake.  The cake does not need to be cold to accept the transfer.

Could it be that if you need the buttercream crusted for it to work properly that putting it in the fridge is stopping it from crusting properly? That is more of a question than an answer.

Success!!!!  I'm am totally doing the happy dance!  I put the cake in the fridge for an hour, did the stencil on a piece of parchment paper, took the cake out of the fridge.  Then applied the stenciled parchment to the cake.  Rubbed it lightly with my hand and put it back in the fridge parchment and all, for another hour.  Took the cake out and as I removed the parchment, I ran my small offset spatula along the outside of the paper to make the stencil stay on the cake.  The stencil stayed on the cake almost completely!  Then I piped over the stencil with royal icing.  I didn't really want to have to pipe it,  but I looks awesome!!!

Thank you all for the suggestions.  This had me SO worried that I wasn't going to get it accomplished!!!!