a cake i baked for a birthday at work cracked like it was in a minor earth quake . i made the cake wednesday evening to decorate thursday afternoon to go to work on friday. well i ended up in the er on thursday morning and was released late thursday after noon . i went home and wrapped the cake again and put it in the fridge. i pulled it out this afternoon and got it to temp then i proceded to ice and decorate it everything was fine and i put it into the tote i was taking it to work in. its about 9:50 on sunday night i have been working on this cake for hours and it looks decent considering. i go over to the table to finsh cleaning up and take another look at the cake and it has a crack in it i swear it looks like an earth quake hit it. i dont know if its cause i made it so far in advance that it was starting to dry out or what but tomorrow she will have a cake that you can tell something happened to. even though i tried to smoothe it over you can see where the icing letters started to fall into the crack. i took a picture of it after i fixed it should have taken one of the crack as soon as i figure out how to get the pic off of my cell phone ill post it. what a mess. oh well considering the er visit i guess she'll be okay with the cracked cake.

any ideas on what made it crack so i can prevent it from happening again?

thanks everyone for all of your help on my past posts.

I was having problems with mine cracking too. But I think that it was a support issue. Was it supported well so it didn't move at all?
My mom says that glycerin in the icing helps keep it softer too. I hate when that happens!!! All that work and it cracks.

i guess supportive might have been the issue i have made a 10 inch cake before but only for us at home so who knows. any ways thanks for your input

i am a little confused. Did the cake actually crack? or the icing cracked?

If it is the icing I am going to guess you didn't have enough support, sometimes you need 2-3 of the wilton boards under your cake. You can also get some masonite cut to different sizes.

HTH

Leily

Did you cut the center mound off the cake?

Sometimes if you invert a cake with a mound still in the middle, it will settle and start to crack down the middle.

Sometimes if the cake isn't totally level when it's frosted, the weight of the cake/icing will level itself and cause a crack. Do you think that could have caused it?

I had the same problem with a basket cake I did. I think it, too, was a support issue. The think weighed a ton! It cracked right down both sides. I just piped on more little flowers and sent it off to work with my DH. You couldn't even tell.

PennySue, Your basket cake is so beautiful. I have been practicing basketweave every day for a few hours and still can't get the horizontal ones straight. What is the trick?