I am doing a wedding cake a few days after Christmas and the whold cake is going to be covered in scrollwork.....I found a really cool stencil that I want to use for the scrollwork so that way the cake is the same all over. I have been practicing and I can't get the icing to stop seeping under the stencil and blurring the pattern. Can anyone help???? I have tried bc and royal. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
You might try using a luster dust or something similar that's dry, pulling the stencil off, then going back over it with your bc or royal icing. Maybe even using a toothpick to trace the stencil onto your icing and then going back over the outline once you remove the stencil. I've done the outlining with pretty good results with a certain of writing that I wouldn't have been able to do freehand...
Designer Stencils has videos that show you how to use them. See if they answer your questions. I haven't ordered stencils yet, but they are on my wish list!
http://www.designerstencils.com/videos.shtml
For the stenciling I've done, I found it worked better if the cake had been refridgerated for atleast a few hours before I did it. It creates just a slight moisture that help adhere the stencil to the cake and keep BC from seeping under. I'm sure the videos would help too, and just keep practicing. I love stenciling, it's so much quicker than piping and if you master it the results are fantastic! Of course, cake specific stencils work best too cause they're softer and more flexible; I've used a scrollwork stencil I made myself from the stiffer plastic and it's more challenging. ALSO, sometimes you just need an extra pair of hands to help hold it in place, if you have someone handy to help you.
I actually bought the stencil from designer stencils and I even watched the video, I did what they did, but it just didnt work. I am also practicing on a cake dummy, maybe I should cover it in fondant and then try it. Maybe the styrofoam is just too hard? Thanks for the replies, I will keep working at it. I figured that if I have to, I will trace the pattern onto the caake and then pipe it after.
From my experience, I just think your frosting is to thin. I dont care what the directions say it needs to be stiff. Not quite buttercream rose stiff, but pretty gosh darn close.
I have actually done a stencil on styrofoam (no fondant) and it worked, but like I said my frosting was stiff.
The other set of hands works well also, especially until you get the hang of it.
Thats my advice... stiffen in up 
We would agree about the stiffness issue....We tried it with melted chocolate...Althought it looked ok (it was a friend's birthday), there was some clumping going on when we pulled the stencil away....At the ICES convention in Orlando, one of the owners of Designer Stencils demonstrated on the top of a dummy cake with a stiff royal icing...However, she just glopped some on and then scraped it from one side to the other....We haven't tried it yet on the sides of a cake...We'd say from her demonstration point-of-view, she did the easy piece---the top!
Paul & Peter
I use Sugarshacks icing, but I tried that and Royal.I have tried it again using stiffer icing, and it is working better, now it just seems to be seeping under the bigger parts on the stencil.
I made my first stencil cake not long ago. (The photo is in my CC album.)
I used Royal Icing over fondant. I learned that the fondant had to be perfectly smooth. The area where the fondant slightly curved inward became the first piece of cake served, because the icing was thicker there.
I'm looking forward to hearing y'alls advise. I enjoyed the stencil work, but would love to do a better job.
-Debbie B.
if it is seeping under, then i suspect all of your stencil is not flush against the cake when applying it.
make your royal even stiffer. i use it REALLY stiff to stencil
I recently used a stencil for the first time. I used crisco to help glue the stencil to the fondant and it helped the stencil "stick" to the fondant as I dusted. I also rubbed a very thin amount of crisco over the image and then dusted and it also helped the dust adhere to the image and I did not get any dust under the stencil. Hope that helps somewhat.
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