I just perfected this little tip so I thought I would pass it along...it's one of those why didn't I think of that before things. I made a (two 10-inch layers) champagne cake with raspberry filling and vanilla butter-cream frosting (three times until I got it right!) for a friend's daughter's wedding and the Mother of the Bride (MOB) wanted the frosting to be smooth, like a fondant. I recently read how you can use a paper towel to make butter-cream frosting smooth so I told the MOB I could do that - I'm not afraid of paper towels! The Paper Towel Trick worked but I thought it was kind of a pain and it took forever plus bits of paper towel were left behind! There had to be a simpler way! And there is...
After the cake is assembled, a crumb coat (a very thin layer of frosting) is applied and then the cake is refrigerated for about 30 minutes, till it's nice and cold. I frosted the cake as smoothly as I could with an off-set spatula, as you can see, it's not so smooth!
I used a small off-set spatula (it was easier to work with than a larger one), dipped it into very hot water for about 5 seconds, then dried it with a paper towel. I quickly held the spatula lightly against the side of the cake and "ran it around" the sides. Because the frosting was cold, the heat from the spatula didn't melt it, plus I didn't hold the spatula in one place - I kept it moving - ever so lightly! I wasn't moving the frosting, I was just RE-moving the bumps and the warm spatula did all of the work! Since you have to move quickly the cake was smooth in about a minute! I re-dipped the spatula in hot water as needed, it worked beautifully. And I didn't have to pick bits of paper toweling off the cake! It helps to have a turn-table (a lazy susan) to turn the cake as you hold the spatula.
This is the finished result...smooth as a baby's bottom! And I heard it was dang good, too! I wasn't there so I didn't get to taste it...but I can tell you, in my humble opinion, butter-cream frosting is by far the best tasting frosting...fondant is disgusting and why anyone uses it is a mystery to me! No one eats it - when wedding cake with fondant is served people scrape the fondant off and eat the cake...but now you can have fondant-smooth cake that tastes great! Someone said the cake looked like a ladies hat...maybe...to which I replied, "Really? Then I'll eat my hat!"
These were some of the flowers I made (they matched the cake!) for the event...beautiful peonies, roses, hydrangea, gerbera daisies, wax flower, narcissus (smelled Heavenly!) and pieris japonica...but as pretty as the cake and flowers were, the bride stole the show and I wish her all the best!
P.S. My FAVORITE Butter-Cream Frosting can be found here.
