I love buttercream!! I say this a lot.  I am always trying to find new piping techniques using buttercream such as the ruffles and roses techniques which seem to be very popular right now.  I was on a mission to use a buttercream technique I haven't yet tried out and I succeeded in my mission! 

I made this cake for my boyfriends neices and nephews who are amazing kids.  There is 5 of them, Jamie, Jack, Jessica, Alex and little Isabelle. 

Here is my cake:

I remember seeing this icing technique on a cake recently but I have no idea where and I didn't save the picture so I had to go by memory which in my case isn't always a good thing...  on this occasion my memory seemed to work okay and although I am sure there is another way of doing this technique, using a palette knife seemed to work for me :-)  I piped 4 oval balls of buttercream with a large writing nozzle (from my pastry piping set) in a line one on top of the other.  Using a palette knife and a sweeping motion I managed to create the effect above. I did one line at a time to get the over lap look.

The cake was 4 layers which included 2 chocolate layers and 2 vanilla layers covered in chocolate and vanilla buttercream with a few chocolate chips added for a bit of crunch. I did alternate layers of pink vanilla and chocolate buttercream which looked pretty when cut.

Happy Baking!