Help!! Wedding Crusting Cream Cheese Icing

Decorating By georgiapuddinpie Updated 6 Mar 2010 , 3:48pm by Loucinda

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georgiapuddinpie Posted 5 Mar 2010 , 4:54am
post #1 of 12

I have a wedding cake due tomorrow that I used Crusting Creamcheese icing. The icing looks saggy and wrinkly and I cannot fix it. The more I try the worse it gets. I have used high density foam roller, viva, and a combo of the two. I am at my wits end. I don't usually use this type of icing, but the Bride requested creamcheese. Someone please help me. I am supposed to serve the cake too.
TIA

11 replies
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icer101 Posted 5 Mar 2010 , 5:02am
post #2 of 12

please tell us the recipe you used.

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denetteb Posted 5 Mar 2010 , 5:06am
post #3 of 12

It might help if you posted the recipe you used. It sounds like it might have been too soft, not enough powdered sugar if it is saggy. Did it crust enough to use viva and roller? Or did it stick to it? All the cream cheese recipes I have used handled just like regular buttercream. Sorry I don't have any good suggestions at this late date. Do you have time and energy to start over? Scrape off the bad, make some new with a new recipe and start fresh maybe in the morning after a couple hours sleep? If you let bc crust too long it can look kind of wrinkly when doing viva and roller. Could that have happened? It only needs to crust a short time. Maybe you need to just stop with the smoothing and move on to the decorating. Put some extra flowers or piping or details or something on the worst areas. Remember the bride and groom and guests won't be looking at it as close as you are. Step back 3 or 4 feet and look at it again. Best I can come up with. Good luck with it!

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georgiapuddinpie Posted 5 Mar 2010 , 5:52am
post #4 of 12

I used the Wedding Crusting Creamcheese Icing recipe in the recipe section here. Basically 2 blocks creamcheese, 1 1/3 cup of shortening, 3.5 pound confectioners sugar, with some flavorings, 3 tbsp meringue powder. The cake had sat for awhile. I had smoothed it and it looked fairly good...then started to stack it and had some dings. So tried to smooth and that is when all Hades broke loose with the wrinkling and sagging.
Thinking of starting over. I was going to transport tomorrow night(so it wouldnt melt or anything) , but the cake is not actually due till Saturday at 2:00. Keeping in mind I must get ready and transport 50 min. away.

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zdebssweetsj Posted 5 Mar 2010 , 6:26am
post #5 of 12

I've always found cream cheese icing to be VERY heat sensitive, might try cooling it down then try to clean up the damage.

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Loucinda Posted 5 Mar 2010 , 1:35pm
post #6 of 12

Not that it helps now, but when I have a request for cream cheese frosting, I use Earlene Moore's recipe. It is on her site www.earlenescakes.com

Is there any way to scrape what is sagging off of the bottom and re - smooth that section (or put a trim to cover where you repaired it)?

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georgiapuddinpie Posted 5 Mar 2010 , 2:46pm
post #7 of 12

Thanks everyone for all of your suggestions icon_smile.gif This thing kept me up all night so I got up early this morning and am re-icing as we speak. I will be much more careful when I stack it this time and I am gonna try to keep it cold all day even while decorating. Hopefully it will transport well tonight, since we are having a cold spell here in Georgia. The wedding starts at 4 tomorrow. When do you think I should take it out of the fridge (so it is not cold) when we eat it, but so it doesnt sag too?

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denetteb Posted 5 Mar 2010 , 3:19pm
post #8 of 12

On my way out the door so will double check your recipe proportions later. However based on your last writing, I think what happened was you had it crust way too long to be trying to re-smooth it. Once it has firmly crusted and you try to viva or roll it, it will make little cracks in the crusted layer. Especially since you said it was looking fine at first and only sagged when you tried viva/roller much later to fix dings. To fix the dings you should have just worked on those dinged areas and not try to re-smooth large areas. Hope your second time works better. Relax, you have tons of time since it isn't needed till Sat afternoon. I thought the wedding was today. I will be late, I just checked with my recipe for cr ch frosting that I have used for a wedding cake and the proportions are the same. Fat to cr ch to powdered sugar so I don't think it is the recipe. I think it was just too crusted to be smoothing.

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georgiapuddinpie Posted 6 Mar 2010 , 11:24am
post #9 of 12

Okay, so I re-iced it and smooothed it and stacked it. It looked great. Decorated in the fridge. Took it out to transport it last night (so it wouldnt be in the sun). It was 50 degrees in my car and by the time we got there it was sagging a little. By the time the guy got it up the stairs, it was sagging alot. I have to serve it tommorrow and take credit for this thingicon_sad.gif.
Oh well, I guess it will be okay and my pride will recover. On the bright side the Bride loved it icon_smile.gif. Do yall have any pointers on serving? It is a stacked cake with a dowel all the way through the center. How do I unstack? What is the best way to serve?
Thanks for all of ya'lls help! I have to say, I love this site and the people on it. icon_biggrin.gif

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denetteb Posted 6 Mar 2010 , 1:56pm
post #10 of 12

Glad you posted an update, I was wondering yesterday how things were going. Sorry to hear it was sagging again. So great that the bride loved it! For cutting go to cateritsimple.com , this is indydebis site and has real good info and pics on how to cut it. I used her method for the wedding cake I did and it worked very well. I used a wedding server instead of the comb she uses cause I didn't have one. I served the largest tier first, that way any leftovers were the smaller, moremanagable sizes. I haven't used a center dowel (I assembled mine on site) so can't help out with that specifically, my guess is to lift the top tier off of the dowel using the cake server or large icing spatula to get under the top tier and lift straight up over the center dowel. Then pull the dowel up and out. This is just a guess though. Then use the spatula to separate the other layers. Good luck and have fun at the wedding!

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georgiapuddinpie Posted 6 Mar 2010 , 3:38pm
post #11 of 12

Thank you so much!!! This guide is so much easier than the other one I found. You are a life saver! Do you get the same amount of servings as the Wilton guide?
Any way thank you everyone for helping me through this whole ordeal. icon_smile.gif

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Loucinda Posted 6 Mar 2010 , 3:48pm
post #12 of 12

Yes, it is the same amount of servings. Indy is such a wealth of info on here - she has helped me so much!

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