Hi guys

I've heard somuch rave reviews about smbc being used under fondant that i finally decided to give it a try...that did not go to well. After Icing the cake i placed it in the refridgerator to harden a bit before putting on the fondant. A few minuets later, all hell broke loose and the fondant got all wet and soggy and all the colours started to run. I wanted to cry. There was water actually sipping out from underneath the fondant.

Please someone tell me what did I do wrong? How do the big bakers like Ron Ben Israel and Sylvia get theirs to avoid condensation.

Thanks.

I'm sorry you had such a terrible experience.

I alway use SMBC under my fondant but I don't put it in the refrigerator. I live in Hawaii and the humidity make the condensation ruin my cakes. I fill my cakes with SMBC and then spackle the cake per Toba Garrett's method. Then I let the cake sit for a few hours or overnight so it will settle.

Then cover with fondant.

HTH

Hmmm, not sure what went wrong. I use SMBC, put it in the fridge for a few hrs., no dry cake problems, and cover. Is there condensation, yes, but it air dries.

Thanks alot for the replies guys! It really helped. I live in the caribbean and it gets super hot down here so I guess that was an issue for me. I'm thinking of going the austrailian way and use ganache instead.

It sounds like your buttercream might have been "broken" if there was liquid seeping out from under the fondant. Was the buttercream smooth or kind of curd-y when you put it on the cake?

What is th Toba Garretts spackle method?

When you make any kind of meringue buttercream it's best to use candy colors instead of regular food coloring. the candy colors are oil-based, so they don't "resist" the butter in the meringue buttercreams as much as the regular food colorings will. Powder colors work okay too, but I've noticed that sometimes when you put water-based food colorings in a meringue butercream the color will bead up and seep out of the icing. Especially if it's a deep color that takes a lot of dye to get it to taht color.

When a meringue buttercream breaks it separates, and it looks like cottage cheese, or just kind of lumpy. It should be smooth, not rough in texture. If you make it ahead of the time that you use it you should get it to room temp and re-beat it before you use it to make sure it's totally homogeneous. You're basically making an emulsion and you want it to be smooth. If it starts to separate the liquid can seep out, which might have been what was coming out from under the fondant.

If the butter's too cold when you beat it in the buttercream can break, or if you re-beat it when it's too cold it can happen. You should just continue to beat it while you warm the bowl up by wrapping a hot dishtowel around it. That will warm the bowl and the icing will warm up, and it should smooth out. Onthe other hand, if the butter is too warm or the meringue is too warm the whole thing can turn to syrup, and you have to cool it down to get it back to where it should be. Either way, if it's not totally smooth after you beat it it can break and liquid can seep out of it.

Ass I understand it ..

The smbc was cold and hard before you covered it with sugarpaste ..?

then, the condensation that formed between the cold buttercream and the sugarpaste, plus the caribbean environment, means that the liquid seeping under the cake is dissolved/melted sugarpaste ..

Toba Garretts spackle is mushed cake in buttercream that fills uneven spots on the surface of the cake and provides a smooth surafce to apply the cake covering.

The ganache method also melts in the stronger heat ..

Thanks. I will try the candy colors next time. Very interesting.

the buttercream came out fine. my problem was that once it comes out the fridge. condensation takes over.

condensation will happen to EVERY cake that comes out of the fridge, it is unavoidable. However you can make things simpler on yourself. The condensation is happening because the cold cake is meeting the warm air. Make sure your cake is covered with plastic wrap (air-tight) and leave it in that plastic wrap until it has come back to reoom temperature. The condensation will still form, there is no way around that. But it will form on the plastic instead of the cake.

If you don't want to put plastic against your cakes surface, put it in a cardboard box first, then wrap the box in plastic. the point is to keep it air-tight so no warm air touches the cold cake.