How to Ice & Smooth a Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream

In this video I demonstrate how I ice my cakes and smooth my buttercream when I use Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

In my video I use an offset spatula and a bench scraper. This is NOT the "hot knife" method. I have used that method in the past (dip the spatula in a pan of hot water and dry it of), it works, but it also melts the butter in the buttercream and leaves unsightly streaking... and I've found is just an extra, unnecessary, step.

My Swiss Meringue Buttercream recipe is on my blog: http://happycakesbakes.blogspot.com/2011/04/swiss-meringue-buttercream-recipe...

Music in this video is "Climb to Elara" from danosongs.com
Check out my blog: happycakesbakes.blogspot.com

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Buttercream
• how to ice a cake
• frosting a cake
• swiss meringue buttercream
• smbc
• cake decorating
• baking
• smoothing cake icing

[melissy516]

thanks for the tutorial! will fondant decorations "stick" to the cake once it has been chilled? do i use water to adhere them? thanks!

[HappyCakesBakes]

@melissy516 Hi! I generally don't have a problem with fondant sticking to the chilled buttercream cake... but if you are having trouble with it adhering you can try adding a little piping gel or even just a little "fresh" buttercream. I'm not sure how well water would work with a Swiss Meringue Buttercream (I've never tried it)... I think the high butter content would repel water making the decorations more likely to slide around....

[MissCiasiab]

What's the recipe for the cake? Can we just use white flavor from the boxed mix that we buy at the store? Do you recommend this for beginners? Also, I want to try to do your butter cream recipe but it seems like it would take me hours. Do you know if they sell any butter cream at the store? What do you recommend? Thanks a lot! :)

[HappyCakesBakes]

@MissCiasiab I like a recipe from Ron Ben Israel, you can Google "Ron's Sublime Vanilla Cake" to get the recipe or recently I found one by Crumb Boss Google "Crumb Boss Vanilla Cake" both recipes are great (YouTube won't let me post the links here...)! But you could use a boxed mix if you don't want to try a scratch recipe. I would not use a store bought icing with this smoothing technique, you need an icing with real butter in it. Give my recipe a try, it's easier than it looks!

[HappyCakesBakes]

@MissCiasiab And yes, beginners can do this... It does take a bit of practice to be able to quickly get a smooth cake... So it might take a beginner a bit longer... When I first started I would go around and around and around, seemingly forever! But after a few cakes you get a better feel for how much pressure to put on and what angle to hold the scraper, ect... I hope you give it a try, Good Luck!

[3poppyseeds]

Great video and I will be checking out your blog more often. I too was wondering about your turntable. I have a few from Wilton, ok but not what I like. Thanks for the tip. I was wondering about filling your cake with the strawberry SMBC, did you make a dam, like we do with regular BC? With the softness of the SMBC, it seems like it would not hold up.

[HappyCakesBakes]

@3poppyseeds Actually, I don't use a dam if I am just filling a cake with SMBC. It is soft, but the strawberry buttercream is the same consistency as what I ice the cake with... also I refrigerate my cakes between steps, so the filling layers set hard before I ice my cake- and then refrigerate again if I am covering with fondant so the buttercream is hard when i smooth the fondant. Nothing "squishes" out this way. If I was using a filling other than buttercream I would use a dam though. HTH!

[hana764]

ty for the vid..I was having trouble with smoothing the cake

[HappyCakesBakes]

@NappynHappy81 For a shaped cake or a cake with odd angles/edges I use a combination of a small offset spatula, and a plastic "table scraper" that is flexible enough to bend and I've even used just my hands, the I've got "hot hands" and my body temp is enough to soften the surface so I can smooth it. You could probably even use a piece of cardboard that you can bend to the shape you need :)

[NappynHappy81]

I have another question..How would you smooth icing on shaped cakes?