Hi, I am a novice cake decorator (only 6 years experience). I am still trying to achieve that "smooth" look that all bakers seem to have. I used to use an icing knife, but that only works so well, so then my hubby bought me some bondi scrapers to smooth out the icing, but that's not perfect either. I still can't achieve that smoothness.

So I use water to smooth out my icing. It works really well. The only problem with this is........water marks!!! After about an hour, you will see water marks on the cake, like where the water dripped down the cake (sometimes you can't see it). Or just general white marks all over the cake. How do I avoid this? Does anyone else have this issue or is it just me? Thanks!!

The nice lady that taught me everything I know about buttercream told me to never, never, never use water That said, I don't know how to tell you to get rid of water marks because of course I don't do that Anyway, I use a scraper to get mine as smooth as possible then I use a viva paper towel with a fondant smoother.

Hi Tonia....Sharon Zambito has a DVD "Perfecting the Art of Buttercream". It is a real good DVD. She uses a bench scraper. She keeps a pot of hot water by her, and dips her bench scraper in it to heat, then wipes it with a paper towel before smoothing the icing with the hot, dry bench scraper. She dips & wipes everytime she goes over the cake. Go to www.SugarEdProductions.com if you would like to purchase the DVD. In my opinion, all of her DVD's are great!
HTH

This is the method I use: http://cakecentral.com/articles/126/quick-easy-smooth-icing-using-a-roller-melvira-method

I also use a long spatula followed up with Viva paper towel and a fondant smoother.
Considering water and oil don't mix I can see why you have problems with water marks on buttercream

I would do a search of this site for buttercream tips since there are so many ways to smooth your BC. Just to name a couple techniques: viva towel method, warm knife, paint roller.

I would not use water because if you think about it you aren't really mixing the water with the frosting you are just pushing the frosting around with the water.