I have a cake decorating store here in Okc. I teach some cake decorating classes. this is a tip that i give my students. After i ice my cake i like to get it as smooth as possible first. After my icing has crusted over (not fully crusted but not wet either)I take a piece of wax paper and a fondant smoother and go over the entire cake with it. it's kinda like ironing your cake to get it smooth. what i like about it is that wax paper is cheap and unlike paper towels does not leave a printed mark or cost so much like viva.you can test your cake first and if the wax paper sticks its not crusted over enough wait and try again. remember the weather always effects the butter cream icing.

Thanks!! I will definately try that, and it is so much cheaper than viva!!! I also sometimes use the Melvira method.

Hey thanks a lot for the tip. I've always wondered if I can use wax paper for that purpose, now I know I can.

What if you use an IMBC, or a SMBC? How do you get them smooth?

Mike

I use fmbc so I can't do some of the smoothing methods, but I get mine cold so the butter makes it firm/hard, and then smooth it - sometimes I use more FMBC to fill in spots that aren't as nice as I'd like them to be.