First you need to find a picture that you want to copy and print it out in the correct size. If it has any text on it, you will want to flip the image before you print it. I realized that my image was going to be a mirror image but didn'tcare which direction the car faced. I didn't think about the fact that the numbers on the side of the car and the word "Rusteze" on the hood would be backwords until I put it on the cake. Go me.
You are going to place your printed image on a flat surface such as a piece of glass or the underside of a cake pan and tape a piece of wax paper over it. Then make your frosting. I suggest using a fairly thick buttercream for the outlines and then thinning it a bit for the fill. I used a fairly thick buttercream for the whole thing and it didn't end up being completely flat. Do your outlines first. If you have a very detailed picture like I did and you want to use a thin outline tip, that's fine, but use a thicker line for the outside line. I used a thin line all over and you could see under it on the final cake. Then fill in everything else, starting with the smallest, most intricate area first. When you are doing the larger areas later, you will want to frost right over the small lines and intricate areas with your main color of frosting. When you finish, you will want your entire picture to be about 3/16" thick.
Then put it in the freezer for about 15 minutes Longer is fine- you just want to make sure you give it enough time to freeze. When you remove it from the freezer, untape it and flip it onto your cake quickly, then (also quickly) peel off the wax paper. Your image will stick to the wax paper when it is frozen, so you don't have to worry about doing the actual flipping quickly, you just need to peel the wax paper off while it's still frozen. I imagine if you move too slowly you can probably put the entire cake in the freezer with the image and wax paper attached for 15-20 minutes, and then take it out and peel it then. My image did not turn out as good as I was hoping but it's still much better than I could have done freehand. I will try it again some other time using the tips I've posted here and see if I have a better experience. Please let me know if you try it and how it works for you!
