I'm doing a wedding cake in a couple of weeks and the bride has left the technique up to me. She wants black scrollwork on white fondant and has seen my stencilling as well as extruded fondant swirls. I've also told her that I could pipe with black royal icing. If you had the choice, what technique would you use and why?

I personally would use the black fondant swirls and apply them with piping gel brushed onto the swirl itself. just the tiniest amount possible. I have used all three methods, but this seems the easiest and less likely to leak onto the white? If you use stencils there could always be a small seepage under the stencil that you wouldn't see and would color the white fondant before you could get it off. THe black icing piped on could cause bleeding into the white fondant.

I pipe with black or any colored buttercream all the time. Whether it's fondant or buttercream iced cake there isn't much room for error when piping on a color. There are several pics in my photos.

I would pipe it with butter cream because that is what is what is the quickest for me.

I know that piping would be the fastest and easiest. But for some reason or another every time when I am wanting things perfect and try to pipe scrolls on my hands start shaking with nerves. It seems that this only happens when I am trying for perfection. When I am not as concerned about it being so perfect they come out much better. Cakelady2266, you are right there is not much room for error when piping onto white. and it seems that, that is exactly what my nerves sense. the rest of the time I am not shaky and have a very steady hand. Even when I have tried to pipe RI scrolls ahead of time to try to get nice looking scrolls so I don't have errors this happens. It is mainly on scroll work. that is why I would love to get myself a silhoutte(like a cricut) Then I would still be able to offer that look w/o having to be nervous about having nervous hands. Best wishes and let us know how your cake turns out.

Jules5000, I guess I was blesses with steady hands. I do have some shaking trouble if I have been up all night, that probably because of all the coffee lol. Royal icing works too, I have trouble with mine breaking when trying to get it on the round cakes. I have a cricut and I love it, too.

This may be a good solution for a design not on the cricut cartridge. I read a thread on here a while back about piping snowflakes out of a gumpaste mixture the consistency of royal icing. I haven't tried it yet but I plan on it next snowflake cake. It was flexible until it dried and there wasn't a whole lot of breakage. I don't have the directions for it and I can't remember who posted it, but it's probably findable.