Help!! I have not tried fondant yet. Have only worked with buttercream and royal icing. How do I make buttercream extra smooth? I have tried getting my spatula hot and wiping it off. I have tried spraying the cake down a little with water. Nothing really makes it look perfectly smooth. Any suggestions?
I always let my crust (about 15 minutes) and smooth it with a viva paper towel and my hands. There are several methods posted on the forums about this. You can do a search and find a wealth of information. 
Well there is a number of ways. the easiest is to take a viva (non printed) and smooth it over your cake with your hand or better yet with a fondant smoother after the icing has crusted. Or a new popular way is the 'melvira method' using a high density foam roller on a crusting buttercream. I have not tried this yet, but a lot of people swear by it. You will find a lot of posts about it if you do a search here on cc.
Also a lot of people use large blades (like a bench scraper/spackling knife) say from the hardware. Then heat it up in boiling water, wipe dry and smooth. Also there is an article on upside down icing method. It will also show how to use the bench scraper blade.
Use a bowl scraper I learned that in my recent cake class no more spackle knife here, also I learned to use the big icer tip and also realized my icing was too stiff tried getting your icing soft enough to spread nicely also I heard that over beating your icing or not using a paddle attachment will create a lot of air bubbles and that will make it hard to have smooth icing... Good Luck to you I'm still struggling to get smooth icing and I really want sharp edges on my cakes!!!!!
You can also use parchment paper with your fondant smoother...just like the viva method. I find this gives a nice smooth surface a bit better than the viva i think....however since parchment is speny I just use the viva because it does fine for most cakes....Good Luck - 
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%