LOL @ Brandi
Ohhh I do so need to learn a rose (ahem Laura) ...I have actually watched utube videos till my eyes bled... try them with crisco (practice) .. tried them on sticks ...tried them with gumdrops, hershey kisses....
what else can I do?
come visit me.... 
Sorry about that post....... I keep trying to delete it, but it won't let me... ??
Anyway, I was going to say that a lot of us were around decorating cakes long before fondant and gumpaste came to America... Buttercream was fashionable and just as much an artform.. Old decorating books will confirm that.. Fondant is stylish, and in vogue today, but lets give the pioneers of this industry their due reward.. Those styles may be old fashioned by today's standards, but none the less just as artistic.. IMHO
Here here for us oldies but goodies!!
Have to share that many times I get quite a chuckle from folks who on the one hand lament over the fact that BC is "too har-r-r-r-r-d to do!" yet on the other hand refer to us who do it well (and remember the olden days!) as "out of date" and "old fashioned". 
It was especially enlightening when I read on here that BC techniques were taught in the Wilton MASTERS course. 
But we all rock on! Who knows .... Christ may learn to make a BC rose and I just might someday make a fondant cake!
Christi,
I live in an area like that too. The fountain cake is still "in". I hate those things, just not my style.
You make great cakes. I think you should just stick to your style and build your brand to fit your target market.
But we all rock on! Who knows .... Christ may learn to make a BC rose and I just might someday make a fondant cake!
As I recall you did do a fondant cake recently, and well too... I was one of the veterans who resisted the fondant rage 
I was comfortable with buttercream, and saw no reason to add to my repertoire.. (I think carpel tunnell, arthritis, and tendenitis had something to do with it, ) Unfortunately, old age comes hand in hand with old fashioned..... 
hmmm I thought I had already posted this, but I keep checking back and I don't see my reply. If you've read this somewheres already, then I'm sorry!
But I was just gonna say that the way I learned a buttercream rose was by working in a bakery 80 hours a week and having a pastry chef barking over my shoulder all the ways I was doing it wrong...which, actually helped a lot, harsh as he was. I would watch those Youtube videos, too, and of course my roses would come out wrong because I'd be repeating the same mistakes (if I thought they were mistakes, I wouldn't be doing it that way in the first place, right?). I just needed somebody to critique my technique every step of the way, and perhaps that's what you need too 
.
Regarding buttercream and whether or not it is an art form, I just want to clarify that when I said those pillar-fountain cakes are creepy and whatnot, I wasn't trying to say that buttercream itself was outdated, nor did I insinuate that fondant and gumpaste are superior (didn't say anything about fondant and gum paste at all, actually). Personally I think piping is one of the most beautiful art forms out there; I just think those cakes of yore are a bit heavy handed and are lacking in style. Ruffles can be brilliant, just not when they are exploding off of a cake in some outdated charicature of 'femininity'.
My MAIN problem with those cakes is the pillars, the fountains, the staircases....how is that an art form?? That's sticking plastic stuff on a cake! That's not art! I didn't mention the buttercream because that is an art but personally I think those cakes with wafer roses and pillars and fake gold leaves and crap are just cutting corners.
And I suppose my main MAIN problem with those cakes is people request them all the time at my bakery lol!
I like both mediums.. I'm just not a plastic stairway with weird looking plastic people kinda person LOL
And don't ya think it's weird when people put about 20 of those suckers going up the staircases? They all look alike.. wouldn't the bride be confused on which one was the groom 
LOL
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