Tried Melvira's Foam Roller Technique....wow!
Decorating By madicakes Updated 17 Oct 2006 , 10:09pm by BakeQueen
ok ,so i tried the roller...it did not work for me...not sure what i did wrong...oh well back to the smother and hot water...
Pookster, TKeys is right. You need to let the cake sit long enough to crust. Touch it before you use the roller to make sure it's not still wet. I let mine sit a good 30 minutes before using the roller. I have a 6" foam roller with a rounded edge. Also, for the "thin" spots in your icing, I use the large icing tip to put an even coat of icing on the cake. If you don't have that tip, you can use a large star tip and just go up and down on the sides and the back and forth across the top. This puts an even layer on icing down. Then take a spatula and smooth out the icing a little, let it crust and zoom, zoom with the roller! 
Oh Pookster, I am sorry to hear that it wasn't working for you!! 
tkeys brought up all the questions I would have asked (you are ON IT girl! yay!) Hopefully that sparked something and you will try it again and have it work for you... but we knew it couldn't work for everybody... we all have a way that works best for us and it's not always the same. I can't do that hot knife trick to save my soul, so I am jealous of you that you can!! 
>>>formerbuckeye<<<
In case that wasn't clear... that's me giving you a hug.
That onesie cake is so cute!!
Thanks, Melvira. I can use all the hugs I can get. You know, I've been thinking............maybe you should apply for royalties on all 6" foam rollers sold from now on! I'm sure that most of them will be purchased by us cake enthusiasts!! 
I had so much fun making the onesie cake. It is one of my favorites.
Haha! Hey, I am working on patenting and marketing one expressly for the use of cake decorating! It would be just slightly different, and it would definitely be made of food safe foam so that people didn't have to worry (just in case, although I don't think there is anything wrong with it now, but why invite possible problems?) So hopefully pretty soon you will see my line of cake stuff at your local cake and hardware store!
Thank you for the great tip Melvira!! I tried it out for the first time this weekend on my pumpkins. I used it in combination with the VIVA towels. There were four 3d pumpkins in all and I would not have been able to smooth everything with just one method because I could not reach everything with just one. Between the two - it came out great!
Also, so glad you mentioned that it had to be a DRY roller, because of course it fell on the floor once while in the midst of the decorating. So glad I had a couple spares on hand!!
Thank you!!
what is a nap roller????i'm pretty sure i got a foam roller....i let the cake sit for more than an hour before i tried it.....when i rolled over the icing, it just came out looking "tacky"...i would like to have this method work for me cause the "hot water" method does take a while....
Do you use a crusting buttercream? If your buttercream isn't a crusting buttercream, it would stay tacky, even after an hour, and the roller technique (or the viva method) wouldn't work. A nap roller is made from acrylic or wool, and it has texture to it, designed to pick up the paint and leave a tacky looking texture. Foam is obviously made from foam, and it has a smooth spongy surface.
Hope that helps!
There are probably several on this site . . . the Wilton Buttercream recipe is crusting. Most recipes that are either all shortening, or 1/2 butter and 1/2 shortening are crusting, I believe (although that may not be true). I usually use a variation of the Wilton buttercream recipe, with 1/2 butter and 1/2 shortening. There are some recipes people use with meringue powder, and I know there are a bunch of other buttercream recipes out there that crust. I have a few of them I've collected (although I've never tried most of them) - if you can't find them on this site, PM me with your email address, and I'll send you some of the ones I have.
OH MY GOSH!!! Three cheers for Melvira! Her paint roller smoothing technique works perfectly. I love it. It cut my time in half and made smoothing my cake almost effortless. Hip Hip Hooray!!! And as promised, here is a picture of the first cake I've done using Melvira's technique.
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