ok, first i want to say thank you for everyone posting their tips, i can not think of any...oh wait. One of my favorite thing that i do is put a damp paper towel over the end of my royal icing tips when i am not using them to help keep them from getting to hard or at all.

Now i need to know what is this favorite rolling tech. for smoothing it i have never heard of this. i hate smoothing butter cream

Thank you, i am going out tomorrow morning to get one of those.

This is a great thread..Thanks everyone!! I have a question. What is the Melvira rolling method? Melvira are you out there?


EDIT>> I just saw the post with the link. Thanks so much!!

ok, i have tried this roller thing and cannot get it to work!!!

here are a couple of my tips that i share during my classes.
If a piece of icing falls on the cake where it shouldn't be, take one of your icing bags and squeeze a little icing out of the tip and use that icing to pick up the piece that shouldn't be there. its like a sticky vacumn with out the sucking!!
If your tip is inside the bag and you need to use another tip on that colour, (as long as the 2nd tip is smaller) just drop it into a new bag and place the original bag right in behind it.
Mark the tops of your colour jars with a line so you know they are open, only really helpful if you have lots of jars, when they get half empty make the mark into a cross, when they are nearly empty add another line making it a star just as a reminder that you need to buy a new one. so instead of opening all the jars when your getting ready to go to the store just a quick glance at the top will tell you what your needing.
That all i can remember right now.

A child free enviroment, hair tied back and clean hands.

I saw a beautiful cake once at a wedding - the only thing spoiling it was the two hairs stuck in the icing -

It made me think - if they weren't careful about that - were they careful about having clean hands -

Bluehue.

Love this thread and want to thank all the CCer's for the tips. As a newbie they have come in handy and makes things easier so I'm not getting discouraged and wanting to give up.
Something I learned while taking my level three class is use the sponge hair rollers (remove the plastic snap closures or the velcro) to give you a nice round shape to your gumpaste bows. They come in various sizes and you don't have to worry about rotating them on the dowel to make them even.

I like to put cling wrap around my KA mixer while making BC or MMF..Saves alot of time in clean up.

i haven't tried this, but it intrigued me: place your drying gumpaste numbers, figures, bows, etc in a container filled with flour with plastic wrap inbetween (so, flour, plastic, gumpaste) to keep the gumpaste figure from having a flattened back.

This is a great thread!

My tip...when measuring my shortening for BC icing, I line the measuring cup with saran wrap and use a plastic throw away spoon to measure the shortening....I pick up the glob of measured platic wrapped shortening and plop it in the bowl then I just throw the plastic wrap and spoon out and I have a clean measure cup....I dislike cleaning up the grease.

Make a large batch of red and a large batch of black gumpaste, then freeze into ice cube trays (or into whatever size 'portions' you want) When frozen , remove and store in freezer wrapped well in saran and ziplocs. When you need a little, it's there for you!

Delcy

I just tried Melvira's roller method and made the first buttercream cake I've ever done that I wasn't embarrassed of My husband thought it looked like fun and ended up trying it too.

I use an empty Pringles can to hold my icing bag while I fill it, makes it so much easier for me!

I wish I could remember whose idea this was,but I learned if you are piping anything using melted chocolate/candy melts to keep the bag(s) on a heating pad in between uses to keep it from hardening up.

Just used the icing plug idea.....LOVE it! I'll never go back. Thank you!

Here's probably my favorite cake decorating tip: Use an empty Pringles can to put the pastry bag in when you fill it up. It's fast, easy and no mess!

Great thread. I love the viva method of smoothing.The heating pad for chocolate works great too. I also put gum paste in the oven with the light on to harden it faster... works great if you remember that they are in there... he he.

Two other tips I'm quite fond of are the "baking with the flower nail" trick and the "cleaning the tips in the microwave" tip. Very clever!

What is the cleaning tips in the microwave idea?

Take the dirty tips, rinse them out (I use my pinky to plunge the big chunks out) and put them in a GLASS bowl and COVER WITH WATER. (Yes, I am "shouting" that because it is a very important point.) Cover the tips about an inch over with water and give a squirt of Dawn or other dish soap. Then nuke for four minutes, dump out, rinse off and let air dry. You won't have a problem if the tips are covered in water, but you'll have a fire on your hands if you don't!

I just found out about the roller method yesterday. The cake I saw yesterday was flawless. Can't wait to try it.

She also turned me on to IndyDebi's buttercream recipe. Crusts and tastes great!

Texas Rose you rock and you should do this for a living.

[quote="HowCoolGomo1"]I just found out about the roller method yesterday. The cake I saw yesterday was flawless. Can't wait to try it.
quote]

I bought my roller yesterday and will be trying it out for the first time tomorrow. I can't wait....... Getting my bc smooth has been my achilles heel.... lol