Best way to do this stencil on buttercream?

I'm doing my first stencil this week. It's a brown damask pattern that needs to go on light blue buttercream.

I have done a couple of test runs on parchment paper with my stencil. So far I have tried:

Sugarveil: rips apart when I try to get it out of the stencil, also, there are so many tiny separate pieces that I would need to spend days repositioning them all on the cake. So, I need to stencil right on the cake I think.

Melted chocolate - this gives a nice color, but I was unsuccessful preventing bleeding under the stencil. I tried brushing it on, dabbing it on with a (clean) fingertip, and sponging it on. Sponging gave the best result but the lines still weren't crisp enough.

So now I'm looking at alternatives. I'm strictly a hobbyist, so I don't have an airbrush and probably couldn't get one in time (cake is needed Sunday).

I've seen a post about stenciling with tinted piping gel, and I've also seen the suggestion to use thinned out buttercream. Which would be better in terms of getting the richest brown color and least bleeding?

Finally, how do I do this on buttercream without leaving a crease from the edge of my stecil on the cake?

Thanks!

Hi Wehmom,

Thanks! Yes, that is helpul. A few more questions:

1. Did you thin out your buttercream at all?

2. So if I'm understanding correctly, you spread the BC on over the stencil almost like you would spread spackle on a wall?

3. Do you have a good crusting BC recipe that you prefer? I have tried a couple on here but they all end up cracking/drying out. How do I get a good crust without the cracking?

Thanks!

Thanks you guys, I really appreciate the advice.

After reading about the Bettercreme, I picked some up at GFS just to try it. It stencils like a dream! Tonight I'll pick up some buttercream at Sam's, since I've read rave reviews about it on here.

I have two more questions, if you don't mind:

1. How do I figure out how to place the pattern on the cake so that I don't have a large gap at the end after going around my cake? I have some sort of plastic measuring tool that I guess is supposed to measure distances for swags, but it didn't come with instructions so I don't know how I would use it for an actual stencil.

2. Any ideas on how to make sure my stencils are evenly placed vertically? My stencil is a diamond shape with an intricate damask design making up the diamond shape. The stencil came with four of these designs in a row on a horizonal strip. So I cut one of those off the end so I can place it individually on the cake and do those stencils one at a time. Because if I overlay the horizontal strip over what I just did below it, it will obviously smear.

2b. When I lay this individual stencil on the cake, there is very little space between the design and the edge of the stencil. How can I ensure that I don't overspread my bettercreme over the edge of the stencil? Other than being painstakingly careful, of course. Just wondering if there are any tricks. Related to this, should I lay the stencil on there using tweezers so that it is easier to pick up? There is about a quarter inche between the stencil design and the edge, so it will be hard to hold it with my finger and get the entire design covered.

Am I making sense?

Thanks in advance for your patience and help. You gus are incredible.

LearningCurve, I just picked up a thin stencil at JoAnne's. I tested it on parchment this weekend with a smooth-spreading medium (Bettercreme) and it came out great! I just followed the advice given to me here and put a glob on like wall spackle, then spread it out and scraped it off smooth. It was beautiful.

ebredhawk, thanks for the tips on spacing. I'll give it a try. Maybe I'll used actual crusting buttercream for the stencil instead of the bEttercreME and pop it into the fridge between stenciling each row. That way maybe it will be less likely to smear.

Ooops, sorry. What I meant was I used the Bettercreme to swipe over the stencil. I don't think I'd be able to use the Bettercreme as the base. I'm going to use Sam's Club buttercream icing for that.