Hey Guys,

I am going to attempt my first buttercream transfer and I wanted to know what type of icing works best? in the video i watched it said use black gel to do the outline do they mean wilton gel, pipping gel dyed black or homemade? and as far as the rest of the transfersdo you use different color gels as well and just cover the entire picture once your done with the buttercream or do you use colored buttercream for the whole picture then put the final buttercream coat on top to seal everything in???

any help would be greatly appreciated I am kind of lost on this one.

Thanks

I would like to know myself..

I have done this a few times. I did the whole thing with Indydebi's buttercream icing. I did a few practice runs as well so i could get the feel of how it was going to turn out.

Hope this helps.

I use my regular all crisco buttercream for them, sort of a soft medium. And I color my icing with the color gels before I get started, even black.

I used IMBC for the whole thing and it worked great.

I used my 100% butter buttercream for the entire thing. I did use chocolate buttercream tinted with ready made Wilton black icing in the tube for the outlines and for whatever reason, it smeared just a touch. Not sure if I touched that area while making it because I didn't have a see though board to check my work as I went along. I recommend that if you can cut a piece of plexiglass and use that you will feel confident!

Did you see tutorial already? Lots of them on YouTube, but I didn't look at those. http://cakecentral.com/articles/73/how-to-create-a-frozen-buttercream-transfer

I've only done one, but for some reason the largest parts of my picture kept the piping lines in it. I went side to side when coloring in an Easter egg and those lines never disappeared.

I used white buttercream on the back of the whole thing...but I popped in back into the freezer twice before completing it--> once after the outline and once BEFORE applying the final backing of white buttercream (my cake was white.)

I froze it for 3 days with saran wrap around it and the cutting board and it was a piece of cake to remove from the wax paper and place it on the cake.

how much "in advance" can you make and freeze B/C transfers??

I don't know how early you can do that, since I do them last minute. Which is what I love about them. I'm sure they'd be fine in the freezer days or even a week. I would just put it in a ziplock bag if I was leaving it in there any real lenght.

The worms (lines) in the larger areas come from piping lines while you are filling it. I find I get better results if I let the icing build out around the type as I am piping rather than just doing lines.

I don't freezer it until it is done. I have left it to sit a little while for the black outlines to crust over, but I never understood freezing the outlines. Those things thaw before you even get settled back in with a piping bag in your hand to finish it. I also don't do the layer of icing on the back. Never quite understood the need for that either.

I don't know if this is 'old news' but I was quite impressed with myself over the weekend when I thought this up:

I wanted to put a buttercream transfer on the side of a round cake but didn't think it through before I froze it flat. I removed it from the freezer, let it thaw out until it was very soft (I use IMBC so it gets very soft as it warms up and doesn't crust), then I applied it to the side of the round cake, pressing it firmly in place (this helped removed the "worm" (lol) lines). I stuck the cake back in the fridge until the icing firmed up and then removed the wax paper. This worked better for me than using the transfer frozen!

The icing I use is between medium and thin. I have found for me if I get too thin it sticks and doesn't want to come off the wax paper. I still pipe in lines so to speak but let the icing build out and aroudn the tip as I go.

After it goes into the freezer for like 10 or so mins I'll untape it from the board and flip it over, and if I have any worms I'll run my finger over it. Since the icing is mostly frozen it doesn't mush around too much but just enough to work some of them out. Then after it is on the cake I'll viva it too.