I have a request for this cake and they don't want fondant- how in the world do you get those lines with buttercream? Is it possible?!

Some type of decorating comb perhaps? That would be my best guess. Crumb coat the cake, then ice the cake with buttercream nice and thick and use a textured comb.

I recently did a wedding cake with this same technique. I went out and bought decorating combs.... didnt work for me! What I ended up doing was icing the cakes in SMBC, using my small spatula pressed lightly into the icing and turned cake on turntable to make first indentation. I started 2nd line right above the ridge left from the first. I let the icing harden in the fridge for awhile then smoothed out the lines with my fingers. Worked well!

I saw a tutorial for this on someone's blog - - I'm sorry, I don't remember who it was. She made her own "comb" from cardboard. Don't know how food safe that was, but she was able to cut the grooves deeper than normal. HTH

That IS a buttercream cake, and it's not combed. It's done with a petal tip, like #104, and each progressive line is piped all the way around. See the few white lines that are randomly added between the colored lines? You can't get that result using a comb.

Thanks! I guess I'll start working on my steady hand with a petal tip! If anyone fins a tutorial I'd love to see!!

No tutorial, but I bet a laser level would help a lot with piping all those straight lines.

wilton has a new guage that you can use. You impress tiny holes as a guide to keep lines straight.

It's definitely piped on. You can either use a petal tip or the smooth side of the basket weave tip.

Annie

It is easier to do if you have someone else to *spin* the turntable while you are piping the rows of icing. Make sure they keep turning it at an even speed! (I made a cake similar to this a few months ago).

I had originally said this cake was buttercream, but I saw a video on theknot.com today with a cake very similar (if not that cake). The girl doing the video said it was fondant. Now I am at a loss.

It struck me as buttercream at first..I did just happen to run across a varitey of these combs on e b a y. I am not sure if I can give you the name of the store, but if you PM me I will send it to you.
Good luck!

The design can be done either way. If it were me, I would practice on a dummy or smaller cake and get the feel for it, and then decide if it's something you want to do.

Annie