My First Frozen Buttercream Transfer (I used Mario Mushrooms!)

I was at a loss on how make a Sonic the Hedgehog birthday cake for my kiddo's birthday and was looking into printed edible images when I stumbled upon the FBCT (Frozen Buttercream Transfer). I originally found this neat project and gave it to a friend (she's pretty good with cakes) to try out. We both had never heard of FBCT but apparently it is a widely used technique. All you do is print out an image (or grab one from a coloring book), place wax paper on top of it, trace the outlines onto the wax paper, fill in with colored icing, coat the entire back with icing that matches the cake icing, freeze it, then voila: you have an edible buttercream image to place on top of your iced cake. Neato!

I decided to do a test FBCT first. I chose some Super Mario mushrooms because they are simple, have color, and have easy areas to work with. So this is what I made:

Tada!

I also practiced icing the cake too because I suck at it. Even tho that part still looks choppy, it's still the best looking cake I have ever made! And I had a lot of fun and it tasted great. I'll post another blog later that shows how I did it.

Needless to say, my friend's FBCT didn't turn out so well. Her outline and some of the colored icing peeled off with the wax paper. She used the Wilton black icing in the tube. I read in many FBCT tutorials and threads that the Wilton icing in the tube doesn't work well for this project. Some said it worked okay when they used it, but I used Betty Crocker milk chocolate icing (because coloring it black is super easy) and it worked like a dream. It froze and peeled nicely. Also, she only let her FBCT freeze for about an hour. I let mine freeze overnight to make sure it was sturdy and solid before I applied it to the cake.

Helpful videos I used:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV2DZDuv9XA - "How to do a Buttercream Transfer"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILouJOZ9I4o - "How to Decorate a Cake" from BettyCrockerTV

UPDATE (2-18-12)
See these two videos plus more on my FBCT Resource page!