Tutorial Tuesday: Buttercream Transfers

Alright! So today I’m going to show you how to do a buttercream transfer.
Also… there’s a contest at the bottom!!

I’ve only done a few myself in the past, but it’s something I would love to do more of. First of all, you’ll need some buttercream. I have no idea if this technique can be done with store bought frosting, but I’m very inclined to say no, unless it’s store bought decorator’s frosting. That goopy stuff in a can alongside the cake mixes wouldn’t work at all, I’m sure.
I use the classic Wilton Buttercream recipe.

Okay, so you’ll need at least two frosting colors, depending on your design. As always, I recommend gel colors or good high quality liquid colors like Americolors.
You’ll need a frosting bag for each color of frosting and several sizes of round icing tips.

You’ll need a picture that you want to turn into a transfer and a piece of wax paper or parchment paper. Also some tape.

First you’ll want to mix your icing colors.

Next tape your picture to the counter and then the wax paper over top of that.

Fill your icing bags and then start tracing the outline of your picture. Always start with the outline and little details. It’s best to use a picture that isn’t very highly detailed, especially when you’re first learning how to do these.

When you’ve filled in the outline, then fill in all the remaining space with your second color.

Now carefully peel up the tape. You can just tear it off or tuck it under.

Now you can take a peek underneath and get a little preview of your work… be careful though! It’s delicate!

Find a flat spot in your freezer to put this thing. Like… this waffle box. Perfect. You really want this thing to set up over night. Like… a good solid 8 hours would be nice. You want it to be FROZEN and hard when it comes out.
When it comes out of the freezer, flop it down carefully onto your already iced cake.

A rub with a fondant smoother helps. Work fast, you don’t want it to melt. You want to be able to pull the paper clean off.

Now start to peel. I look for the thickest part of the transfer and start there, peel BACK slowly and stay close to the cake.

Remember when I said to let it freeze over night? Yeah… I didn’t do that. I let it set up for like… 30 minutes. lol Oops.

So, you see, it’s not perfect lol. But you get the idea!!

Here are some more successful transfers I’ve done in the past!

Alright, so I also said there would be a contest! You may or may not recognize the robot in this tutorial… he’s from Instructables.com!

I’ve recently started submitting tutorials to instructables and it’s been a really great experience for me! I’ve always loved the website! Well, I’m giving away a credit for 3 months of pro membership to the site!
You can check me out on the site here and be sure to rate my instructables!

So, how do you win the contest?

1. Check out instructables.com and look around the site for a while! Check out all the cool categories and then come back here and leave a comment telling me what your favorite instructable was that you saw. You’ll be surprised how many different things you can learn on there!

2. Twitter this post or post it to facebook. Put a link to that in your comments or let me know in the comments.

3. You must be subscribed to my blog in order to win!

As it was last time, a winner will be picked next Tuesday! Entries accepted until 9pm EST Monday. Annnd since I just have to send you a code to redeem, this can be won by anyone anywhere in the world! (as long as you meet all three requirements! It’s so very easy!

(*Note: this blog in NO WAY endorses that dreaded ccc (cup cake cake)… aka the smooshing together of several cupcakes to make a so called “cake.” I just really needed something to do this demo with and I had no cake on hand… just some cupcakes in the freezer. Oh dear god don’t let that ever show up on cakewrecks.)

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