Help I have a last minute request for a wedding cake using stencil on sides of cake. Have never done this before, but willing to give it a try. She wants buttercream icing, if I let it set up for 24 hours could I then do the stenciling? She wants the design in red, will it work and I was going to use paste and water it down a bit. Please, any advice would be appreciated.

If I were doing it I would use royal icing for the stenciling. Try it both ways on a prcatic board and see what works best for you.

Im also looking to learn how to Damask, but I read in here that somebody gets STENCILS on the side of the cake, and then she get for a glassy thin look ......PIPING GEL mixed with FOOD COLORING...and just puts it on the cake...good luck and put a picture up when done.

you can do it!! make sure your BC has a nice crust on it before you go for it, and do a few practice runs since it's so hard to correct anything with red icing. you can thin down the red too a little bit.. it should be easily spreadable, but not too thin that it's going to get underneath the stencil. practicing will be a good chance to see how much/little icing works best with the stencil you're using.

if the cake is square, just hold the stencil on the side until there's enough icing on it to hold it in place... if it's round, there are a number of suggestions, but the most useful i've found is to use small pins to hold it in place on each end.

also, any small mistakes may be able to be cleaned up with a damp, small, soft-bristled paintbrush.

good luck and make sure you let us know how it goes!

I just did stenciling on an all buttercream cake this past weekend. I thinned my icing using corn syrup and it worked beautifully! I iced the cake the night before so I had a nice crust. Worked like a charm!

Good crusting buttercream that has been refridgerated to help firm it up. Then royal icing for the stencil design. I also dust my stencils with a little corn startch or powdered sugar before to help keep it from sticking to the
buttercream.
HTH

The royal icing works on buttercream? I've just done bc on fondant

Yes ma'am royal icing works very well. Just thin it a litte with some water. I would say glue consistency and I put in on with a little putty spatula. Just spread a thin layer. I find that it works better than buttercream for stenciling. I was having problems the design wanting to pull off with the stencil when I used buttercream. I don't have that problem with royal icing