Have you seen cakes where it appears the cake is encased in scroll work or fondant? Seems like it could be fairly simple, but those are the ones I tend to have problems with. Any ideas of what they are actually using or tips/tools on how to go about it?

Do you have a link to a picture of the type of thing you are asking about?

Well, I may not be explaining myself well. I am so new to this. Right now I just do cakes for friends and family, but who knows what the future holds. I just want to learn new techniques and such. So this is one I found on here and I will upload a couple of ones I've seen. Thanks for responding. http://cakecentral.com/gallery/202260

Well apparently I can't figure out how to attach a pic.

and sometimes it doesn't. there could be other issues at hand and it may not be you.

I'm going to guess that you're talking about this sort of thing:

http://www.sifbeth.dk/galleryda.html

Its called the Lambeth method and uses royal icing. If you're trying to do it with buttercream you're not going to have much success. Success with this method depends on the stifness of the icing and its ability to harden before a second (and third and fourth) layer is added. HTH

Here's her tutorial too

http://www.sifbeth.dk/lambethtut.html

Thank you for the input! Although VERY cool method, I don't think that's what I'm looking for. TexasSugar, can I email you some pictures? I can't get them uploaded on here.

Is this what you are looking for?
http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1297609

If so, that is called cornelli lace. Here is a topic with instructions.
http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-709179-cornelli.html

http://www.wilton.com/idea/Nirvana-Cameos

Are you talking about something like this?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lonbinder/4213399094/in/photostream/

or this?

http://inspiredbycake.blogspot.com/2009/05/2009-orange-show.html

Or kinda like this?

Okay. OP emailed me. Here are the links to the pics. They are at the Knot, so you have to have an account to view them.


http://weddings.theknot.com/Real-Weddings/29388/detailview.aspx?type=3&id=29388&STOPREDIRECTING=TRUE&colors=Gold&Wedding%20Details=Cake

http://weddings.theknot.com/Real-Weddings/49279/detailview.aspx?type=3&id=49279&STOPREDIRECTING=TRUE&colors=Blue&Wedding%20Details=Cake&pageIndex=2

Here you go

My guess is that the gold is fondant (probably mixed with tylose or gumpaste) rolled into ropes of varying thickness and length, shaped, painted with gold coloring, allowed to dry a bit, then glued to the cake using gumpaste glue. Like this http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1925274

I'd also guess that the turquoise is fondant cut outs glued to the cake with gumpaste glue. Like this http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1987812