I am wanting to do a picture on the top of a cake and wanted to try the flooding technique for the first time. Is it best to make the image first and then put it on the cake all finished or make just the outline and put it on the cake to fill or to do the whole thing on the cake?

Depends on what you are making it out of.

If you are making it out of color flow or royal icing, you will do it all off the cake. You do it at least 48 hours ahead of time, so it has time to dry. Longer if it is a bigger piece.

Oh darn! I thought I had read somewhere that it only takes 12 hours to harden I guess I'll have to figure something else out then. I was going to do it with royal icing outline and the color flow icing inside.

Do you happen to know anything other methods I can use to "draw" a car on top of an 8" round cake? I haven't ever done the transfers either.

Thank you so much for your response! I knew I shouldn't have waited.

here is a recipe for powder sugar "colorflow" glaze , that is have used at times.. 2lbs. powder sugar, 1T. clear vanilla, 1/2tsp. almond flavoring, 1/4tsp. salt, 3/4 c. water.Mix it, so when you drop some back in the bowl, it disappears in 3-6 sec. Sorta like color flow or r/i. I use stiff b/c to out line my pattern, let it set up for a little bit. Be sure you can,t see under the outline. Then i use small parchment bags , put the colorflow in and then cut a little hole to fill in. I don,t use tips in the parchment bags. I do use a tip 2-3 to outline with. Don,t let the color flow be watery, just like i said, when you drop some back, it will disappear into the flow. I have used this many times. I have even done a whole winnie the pooh scene with all the characters. It did really great. I make patterns using mylar and a hot pen technique. Then i airbrush the pattern onto the cake. Yes, if using r/i or colorflow, that is done off the cake. let dry and then transfer to cake.

Thanks so much! So yours is done on the cake then right? Will it work over cream cheese frosting?

Well, i have never put this on cream cheese iced cake, So i don,t know what to tell you. Mine has always be american b/c iced when i used this method.

Chocolate Transfers:

http://lovesweetlove.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/white-chocolate-transfer-tutorial/

http://morganscakes.blogspot.com/2010/05/chocolate-transfer-method-tutorial.html

Frozen Butter Cream Transfers

http://cakecentral.com/articles/73/how-to-create-a-frozen-buttercream-transfer

Glad I could help.