Ok so I am planning on a fbct sometime this week. I have never done one of these before, but I do understand the concept of doing it .. I think .. anyways, the colors that are going to be used will be lots of red and some yellows .. I was just wondering how early I can put it on my cake, frosted in buttercream dream icing off this site, and be sure that it won't bleed off? I want the main part of the cake to be white, and just the colors to be on the fbct .. I hope Im explaining this right ... any help would be great, thanks!

When I have done FBCT I ice the back with a thin layer of white once my image is frozen, then I put it back in the freezer. Once the whole thing is frozen I put it on the cake. I also put a small border of white to fill in the gap at the edge. That way the colors don't touch the white cake.

I do them all the time and I have never had a problem with the colors bleeding onto the cake. But, then again, I use royal icing to outline & fill-in my fbct and they come out great all the time. I have some pics in my photos. Take heed when looking that I have yet to master the smoothing technique oh, just make sure that your pic is completely frozen before applying to your cake.

I hope this helps

Great tip about using royal to outline msthang, thanks!

The last cake I did, the fbct were too big (oops!), so I made "backings" for them out of gum paste, let them set, attached them to the cake and then put the fbct on. It worked out pretty well, especially since it was my first time trying the fbct!
Good Luck!

Yr welcom andypotts! I forgot to mention that I thin out the royal icing (not runny) for my fill in and it stays put for good.

Happy Decorating

if you are using thinned royal icing for your fbct, isn't that the same as a colorflow? Just asking ...

I use a small paint brush to smooth out the wormy llines on my fbct after it is thawed, sometimes I have to re-outline my design if the black comes of during the transfer.

With the last two I have been doubling up my outline on the outside of the image. For most of them I outline in a 2, so I have been going back over it to thicken it up to the height of my fill in. This also helps when you put it on the cake, because all you see on the sides is black and not the other colors and you don't have to border it.

I'm sorry but I've never done colorflow and if thinning RI is just like colorflow, then I guess that's what i've been doing and just had no idea I was, LOL. I'll have to check out the techniques for colorflow and see.

msthang - yes, thinning out RI is basically color flow. You don't need to freeze that as it will dry hard on its own.

I wanted to put this out there and see if I am off my rocker or not. I've never done a FBCT, but I am sure that I read somewhere about someone who not only did the FBCT but also filled in around it to whatever size/shape the cake top was going to be, and then froze it.

Here's what I mean. Let's say you wanted to do a Mickey Mouse face on an 8" round cake. You would take your pic of Mickey and around that, wherever you wanted his face to be on the cake top, you would draw the outline of the 8" pan circle. You would place waxed/parchment paper over the design of Mickey and fill that in with the required colours to make his face. Then, around that you would use white icing (or whatever colour of icing you wanted to put on the whole top of the cake as your background icing) to fill in the remainder of the 8" circle. Pop it in the freezer.

So, in essence, you are making a FBCT of your entire cake top. On the day you decorate your cake, you just ice and smooth the sides. Take the FBCT out of the freezer, lay it on the cake, touch up where it meets the sides (which you will cover with a border anyway), and voila! That way, your actual FBCT and cake top are one unit - no worries about getting Mickey's face to sit nicely into the icing on the top of the cake or about putting edging around the transfer to give it a smooth finish. It's already flush with the cake top because of how you made it. Plus, perhaps the whole top freezing together might help with bleeding as it thaws??

Does this make sense? Has anyone tried this? Would it work?

I was just thinking the RI was a good idea for the outlining of the FBCT and then fill with BC and continue as normal. I don't know seems like you could get finer detail lines that way, but that's just in my imagination so far, nothing to back it up

thanks for all the replies you guys ... I have to do my first one this week for thursday night ... when would the best time to make this fbct be?

Tracey, I have heard that people have done it and it does work out fine from what i've heard. And thinks for letting me know that I have been done colorflow all this time, DUH on ME...LOL

Cakerator: You can make your fbct as early as you want, at least I do. I had a Optimus Prime Transformer not due til last friday and I did the fbct on Monday night because I knew that i wouldn't have time during that week and everything was fine with it. Go fo it!!!

Happy Decorating

thanks a lot msthang ... If I decide to make this fbct on wednesday night, I guess I just leave it in the freezer until it is time for it to go on the cake on thursday? Is wax paper the best thing to use under a fbct? and no one has really had any problems with bleeding? Thanks again ..

I have done it as early as two weeks for it was needed.

I use wax paper underneath.

I have never had a bleed issue.

A PP asked if you would ice over the back of the entire image to the dimension of the top of your cake - so the entire top of a cake is a FBCT. Yes, I have done that too - very easy!!! My Sesame Street cake was done that way.

That's great to know about basically freezing the entire cake top, with the FBCT encased in it. I plan to try one very soon, and I think I'll give that a try.

Your very welcome SugarPlum and yes I use wax paper as well, it pulls away so easily. Happy decorating and be sure to post a pic for us, I know it's going to be GREAT!!!

what recipe do you all use for your fbct? I have been using the buttercream dream recipe off of this site for icing on all my cakes lately ...

I use a crusting buttercream (1/4 butter 3/4 crisco)

ok thanks ...