How to get smooth cakes, covered with fondant

Trick is a first an even cake, & good crumb coat…and then a thick well smoothed bc icing. I chill my cakes after the crumb coat, and again after applying the final icing, for about 20 min. I sprinkle a little cornstarch on my hands and lightly apply on the icing all over the cake, then with a paper towel and fondant smoother on top of the paper towel, I rub all over to get a nice clean smooth finish. Sometimes I refrigerate the cake more than once and keep doing till I’m satisfied. Just takes some work & practice. It’s time consuming, but necessary. I also have a recipe on the Blog here on CD for my fake ganache. It’s a mixture of bc & fondant. Easy to apply and smooth. Works well, but recipes best made with homemade MMF.
Hope this helps. Every decorator has there own tips and tricks. Sure you’ll get some more great advice. Looking forward to more posts here, cause I’m always looking for good tips too…..

Thanks jchuck. I’m going to try that, but I always thought that if the buttercream was too thick, it would cause the fondant to sag and maybe even slide off the cake? So I always use a thin layer of buttercream, just enough so that the fondant can stick

Oops… MzCuteCupcakes….missed a step. I should have stated I apply a thick coat of icing, place cake on my turntable and using a drywall spatula I holding at a right angle to the cake, I do remove a good bit of icing on the sides as I turn the turntable , then do the top. Then into the fridge. Sorry. So not super thick…but a good approx 1- 1 1/2" coat. Hope that clarifies. I also put meringue powder in my icing. Once it sets, it stays pretty firm, not going anywhere. I’ve had sagging if my cake wasn’t level, or didn’t dowel it. Learned that from experience. I had buttercream leak out once…it was extremely hot and humid and I had no border around my finished cake. Now, I usually pipe a very thin line of a RI around the perimeter of bottom of the cake before I apply the fondant. Creates a dam so bc can’t ooze out.

Great tip Jchuck. Can you tell us what ratio of meringue powder you use to buttercream, as mine never seems to set really hard either.

Usually For a 4 cup batch of icing 2 heaping Tblsp. I have found that sufficient. If you don’t have meringue pwdr on hand, you can use pasteurized egg whites and make a small batch of RI and add to your bc. I egg white is enough. I always have a carton on hand. Buy and freeze.