I just bought my first set of cake dummies and I am so excited to test them out. I have heard several methods of prepping a dummy to be covered in fondant. My questions is what is your method??? I have heard people use water to adhere the fondant, crisco, etc. What is the best method? Also how do you smooth down the corners so the fondant will not tear? What do I do about a few small dents on the dummy? I need some cake dummy 101 lessons. Thanks for helping.
I use royal icing and smooth it out. It will take care of any little dents. Some people use piping gel instead because they said it was easier to get it off to reuse it. I found that both of of them are just as hard to soak off so I prefer the royal icing.
You want to roll out your fondant and then roll it onto your rolling pin. Then roll over your dummy. Like you would for a top of a pie. Make sure that your fondant is going to cover your piece. Then begin doing a chopping method to get your fondant where you want it to. Then use a fondant smoother and smooth from the top first , then the sides. Cut off excess with a pizza cutter. Smooth back over it to get rid of any pulling that may of occured when you were cutting and picking up the scraps. Voila!
I'm actually working on a display cake right now and I covered my styrofoam dummies with wax paper first so I could re use them. I'm not sure if this is standard procedure or not, but it worked. 
I too just bought a cake dummy but at this point I just want to practice with buttercream.
Do I need to do anything to the cake dummy first or can I just start right out applying the buttercream?
Nope! And you can reuse it again if you want to. Just wouldnt put it on real cake!!
I recently used my cake dummy for the first time. I was so scared to mess it up that I covered it up with saran wrap. I don't know why, but my BC started to slide off after I was almost done! I had to remove the wrapping and forget about it!
Next time, I'm just covering it with the BC.
Although, I'm curious about the parchment paper!
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%