transfer designs

Sometimes, people make requests for character cakes that I don't have the specific shaped pan for, or sometimes people want a design to match a very specific theme or napkin, or whatever. I'm so thankful to have learned a technique in my cake decorating class called the "transfer." You can basically take any image and literally transfer it onto an iced regular round or sheet cake. Here are a few examples of transfer cake designs I've done in the past:

Interestingly, I find that coloring book pages work quite well for this technique because of their generally simple designs and bold lines. I've also downloaded images from the internet, or used the customer's party decorations as a template. You just have to be able to trace the design onto a sheet of wax paper (or regular paper). I usually use pencil and then go over it with clear piping gel. Then, I flip the paper over onto the cake and gently rub it to be certain that the piping gel sticks to the buttercream icing (or fondant, as the case may be). Next, I carefully remove the paper. Now, I'm able to re-trace the outline of the image with colored piping gel or icing and begin filling in the design with stars, just like I would have done if had used the shaped character pan.