The picture attached was sent to me by a bride that wants the same "icing effect" on her wedding cake. I'm actually not even sure if this is referred to as "horizontal ruching" but it's the closest thing I have found so far to possibly describe this technique. Here are my questions:

1) Is the cake in the picture covered in fondant or buttercream? It appears to be fondant, but how would you actually execute this?

2) My bride has requested buttercream (no fondant)....is it possible to get the same effect with buttercream only? and if so, how?

Thanks so much for any information!!!

It's really hard to tell from this low resolution picture.

You can do this with buttercream. Some of these cakes have rows of icing piped on with something like a #12 round tip. You would do that as soon as you have finished the icing coat, before it can crust, or else the piping might crack off. Some similar cakes have rows of ruffles piped on with large flower tips like #104 or larger. The ruffles can be added after the buttercream crusts.

If you are going to have a tasting session with this bride, you could do a cupcake top with with each style so she can see how it looks in buttercream. Takes about 2 minutes...

To me it looks like buttercream and they used an icing comb to get that effect.

Thanks for the replies. The pic the bride sent me is not a saveable image, so I had to take a picture of a picture, but thanks!

Another vote for combed!