I ordered some beautiful stencils but I can't get it to turn out clean. It was really sloppy the first time I did it. I was told to use royal icing and kind of "scrape" it on? Anyone have any suggestions? It would be GREATLY appreciated! Thank you!!

Natalie

Are you trying to do cookies or cake? The video at the designer stencils site is useful. She actually uses a trowel, but you can get the same effect with an offset spatula. I have finally figured out how to do them well for cookies (most recent pic), but it took me several tries. It is all in the correct consistency of icing and in how you "trowel" across the design. You want to apply all the icing in your first pass, b/c if you have to go back, it will likely mess up. Also, I found that I had to wash off the stencils between almost every cookie.....sometimes not, but usually some icing would be on the back of the stencil once I finished so that will mess up your next design. I just dipped it in warm water, swiped it across a clean damp sponge and then dried on paper towel that I had next to my work area. Time consuming, but they turned out perfectly. If you are trying to do cake, I can't help much. Haven't done that.

I like to use the stencils with buttercream on buttercream. Let the base buttercream crust well first. I use a palette knife to smear the buttercream over the stencil. Go slow and don't let the stencil move. I've found the more intricate the stencil the harder to get a clean job because little tabs like to flip up. Lift up carefully.

I do mine the same as grams!

The trick is not only in the icing consistency but also not to use too much icing. I practiced on parchment first. I found it also helped to "rough" pipe the icing over the stencil area and then to smooth it over with in one fluid motion using an offset spatula. And yep - the stencil I used was pretty detailed, so I had to clean it off between each use. There's a picture of it in my photos if you want to check it out.