Recently a friend of mine asked me to do a cake for her daughter's birthday--and she really wanted Barney on it. I had never done a buttercream transfer before this cake, but I was pleased at how easy they are.

First I found a picture of Barney online, cropped it in Irfanview so it showed what I wanted it to, then imported it into Publisher so I could blow it up to the right size. You're going to use this as a template, so it's important that the image is the size you'll want it on the cake. Then I printed it.

I was told to use a piece of plexiglass under the transfer to provide a stiff surface, but I didn't have any on hand, so I used my cookie cooling rack, which has pretty small squares so with the paper on it I got a nice smooth surface. I put the printout on top of the rack, then covered it with plastic wrap.

Remember to do the small details first (like the eyes), because the plastic wrap side is the side everyone will see. As long as that comes along nice, the back doesn't matter. I then outlined and filled the picture. You want the buttercream to be fairly thick so it's easier to handle. Mine was probably about 3/16" thick all over and I filled in with the purple behind the face so it would all be the same thickness. Next I moved the whole thing to the freezer--still on the cooling rack.

Half an hour later, when the cake was otherwise done, I pulled it out and removed the plastic wrap from the picture, and set it on the cake. It was really stiff so it worked out great! I put a dotted border around Barney to finish the edges. Also, be aware every little line shows up in the buttercream, and you will have to smooth some of them out. No worries, though. I just used the flat tip of a butter knife to smooth things out after it had a little time to defrost and it turned out just fine.

You can do a similar picture transfer with colored gels as well. For this project I used a straight-sided 9x13 pan, icing color, and a round tip, probably #7.