I have had this DVD for about a year and since the subject of Faux Fondant icing was posted today I thought others might be interested in seeing this step by step for this icing technique to acheive the look of rolled fondant with buttercream or whipped Pastry Pride topping. This is from Mason's Bakery in Florida. I will tell you that he ices all of his cakes in a whipped topping and the cakes are frozen while he works on them. The bottom layer of the cake is baked in a regular round cake pan, but the top layer is baked in a beveled or contoured cake pan which gives you the rounded sides that resemble a fondant covered cake.
http://www.masonsbakery.com/holidayspecials.htm
And here is a cake I made this way, but iced in Italian meringue buttercream with an icing spatula and smoothed with a spackle tool and a strip of clear acetate paper. I will not tell you that is a fast way to ice a cake, I spent 2 hours doing mine. But the results are a beautifully smooth cake with rounded edges that looks very much as though it were covered in rolled fondant.
An expensive dvd to only learn faux fondant. For that price I would want to see more decorating instructions, like sugarcraft or something. Sorry I see it as overpriced.
It is expensive, but you pay for what you get. If you want to learn ths technique badly enough then it is worth spending the money. I would pinch pennies on somethng else and save up to buy this if you think you would use the technique enough to make it worth the cost.
Your welcome. That cake is iced in Italian Meringue buttercream, which is much smoother to begin with than powdered sugar icing, but it was still a lot of work to get it that smooth. I have been emailing back and forth with Jeff Arnett this morning, he s the one who devised the Faux Fondant method as well as the upsidedown icing technique. He says with an electric turntable and the tool he devised for this method he can do a 16" cake ths smoothly in 5 minutes. I told him he was just bragging! 
can this look be achieved without the electric turntable?
I asked Jeff the same thing. He says yes, if you are using a regular turntable start with the smoothing tool at the very back of the cake and bring it around as you turn the turntable a fill revolution, so you are smoothing in one constant movement.
Shirley, thanks for posting this. i actually came across this dvd a couple years ago but could not get myself to spend the $50. now i'm seriously considering buying it. i also went to the library and borrowed a bunch of Alice Medrich books, since you spoke so highly of her work. 
Thanks for posting that Shirley!! I'm very interested in this. Do you have to buy a bunch of new tools to do this as well?
Here is a link to Jeff Arnetts Faux Fondant Icing tool, how it is made and used to create the look of rolled fondant with buttercream icing. The one new thng he has added is that he no longer uses a metal putty tool or scraper, but rather a plastic one. This makes it easier to drill holes for the curved cookie cutter section.
http://members.nuvox.net/~zt.proicer/message/saved/FauxFondantSmoother.htm
I'm going to definitely look into this. Thanks Shirley!
I've also seen a cut away section of a 2 litre soda pop bottle used as a smoothing tool for faux fondant. I haven't tried it, but I'm tempted.
Here's a link to a post on baking911.com to the technique:
http://www.baking911.com/asksarahbb/index.php?showtopic=352
Rae
Shirley what is RBA? it says that RBA members receive a discount. Do you know what that means?
RBA Is Retail Bakers Of America
Katy, the whipped topping they use at Mason's bakery looks very much like whipped Pastry Pride to me. I have not used Rich's Bettercreme but think it is similar, a non dairy topping that comes frozen in a liquid form, it is thawed and then beaten like whipping cream.
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