Oops....I'm a week late with the Buttercream transfer

First let me start this post by saying I'm sorry it's so late. I believe I promised I would post the how to on buttercream transfers last week and things got so crazy busy I never got the chance. But here is the promised post!

Okay people, listen up................I must confess that my buttercream transfer was a dismal failure! Failure, failure, failure, I don't know what else to say. It wasn't pretty..well it was as pretty as writing can be until I put the background buttercream behind the lettering and that my friends is when it all went to pot or should I say smoosh city. I think the lesson here is that buttercream transfers do not work well on any design or writing that has no give and take. At first I thought it was because maybe the frosting was too soft and that made it smoosh, so bright chick that I am, I thought, hey, I will put just the lettering in the freezer, firm it up, THEN put on the background buttercream and it will be perfect, no flaws and it will work like a charm..hmmmmmmmmmmpppppffffffffffff, guess I am not as brilliant and innovative as I thought, it didn't make a difference, it still smooshed and was unusable. So here are my pics...

First person that guesses what this is ......wins, one million dollars! Just kidding, don't start spending that money already! Okay, okay it's just plain white buttercream, nothing exciting :)

First step after making your frosting is to get your image ready. Print out your image or whatever picture you are using. Make sure the paper is thin enough to see through as you need to turn the image over and trace it so that the image is backwards. You could actually just put parchment paper over your image and trace it, then turn it over when you are ready to pipe. I didn't have any parchment paper and until now, I never thought about using it.............I used wax paper. Since I used wax paper, I placed my image under the wax paper  and taped both of them to a piece of plexi-glass with the wax paper on top, as that is what I was piping on. The reason I used plexi-glass is so that I could look under it and see what the image was going to look like when it was completed. (The frosting you see looks like a royal blue but it actually was a bit darker). Next, let the piping begin!

Hold onto your socks, it's starting to get exciting here....lol   If you have a image that has a outline on it, that will need to be done first. Think of it like you are getting dressed. The outline is first, which is you shape, your eyes, nose and body parts are the next to go on, the parts that are seen anyway (well, you know what I mean...right?), then clothing and finally your shoes. I hope that makes sense.

Ta Dah! This is the completed image before I put the buttercream on the back and ruined it.

Here I took a picture of the image without the plexi-glass behind it and below, with the original image still on the back. The one below is what it should look like on a white cake.

See above is the beginning of the end of my transfer. You plop it down and spread it lightly over your image. I guess I was so irritated and disappointed that I didn't take a picture to show you what it looked like after I put that frosting on..........but believe me it made the letters go all wonky and they ran together, not pretty. I just folded it all up together and trashed it!

After you successfully get the buttercream on the back of your image you then stick it in the freezer for at least a hour, preferably overnight. Be sure you are ready to put it on your frosted cake because it doesn't take long to thaw and you want it still firm when you place it on your cake and remove the wax paper. Peel the wax paper back slowly so you are sure not to tear your transfer. Smooth out the background with your cake frosting!

Hey what's that little guy doing in here? Crazy Angry Bird! Actually I just wanted to show you a picture of one that did work. This was a practice one but it did work out pretty good.

And this is the final Angry Birds cake with buttercream transfers. The images moved a bit but not much. So see, it can work, just not with letters.

Here is the final product for the Columbia College graduation cake. I had to just go and do it the tired and true way of just piping it onto the cake by hand and do the best I could with it. I should have tried doing the hat as a transfer but I was running out of time so I just drew it on the cake.

So there you have it. My grand tutorial on transfers. The good, the bad, the ugly, failure and success! They do work so don't be afraid to try your hand at it, I'm sure you will succeed!

Happy baking!

Tammy