I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong with my fondant cakes. The last few cakes I've done have been a sticky mess! I use SMBC. I ice my cake and allow it to sit in the freezer for about 10 minutes while I roll out my fondant. I use 50/50 mix of Satin ice fondant and gumpaste. By the time I get the cake covered (and I try to do it very quickly) it's so sticky on the outside that I can't even use my smoother. I notice that I have this issue more in the summer, so I'm wondering if it's just too hot and humid in my kitchen. I have the AC going at full blast and the ceiling fan too to try to keep the room cool.

I thought maybe the cakes were getting too cold so I've tried covering them at room temp too but the SMBC is too squishy underneath when I do it that way. Am I the only one having this problem? How do I avoid wet sticky cakes? Please help!

Why are you using gum paste in your fondant to cover a cake? Gum paste is not very tasty and while it makes great figures and decor when mixed with fondant, I can't see covering the whole cake with that mixture. Don't know if that would have anything to do with your sticky issues.

You might not have your fondant rolled thick enough allowing the condensation from your buttercream seep through the fondant faster.

Maybe putting it into the freezer is causing it. I never freeze my cakes. I put my fondant covered cake into the fridge once and it was all sticky and sweaty for the party and VERY hard to cut. So, no more fridges here after the fondant is on. Maybe refrigerate your cake over night if you want it to firm up then put a thin layer of icing on it so that the fondant will stick. ?

I too would nver freeze a cake that I was going to cover in fondant..I refridgerate them but not freeze..I only have sweating or condensation in the summer when it is hot..We just recently serviced our air conditioner and it has helped emmensly.No more sweating...

A sweating cake is just a normal physical reaction that occurs EVERY time a very cold object comes into contact with warm moist air.

The cold object (cake out of freezer) causes the moisture in the air to condense & form water droplets that then collect on the surface of the cold object.

This is the same reaction you get when you allow an iced beverage in a glass to sit out in warm moist air.............the glass sweats. The sweat is the moisture in the air condensing on the outside of the cold glass.

Rae

A

..... I live in the Virgin Islands (US) and i have such an issue with sweating cakes once taken out of my refrigerator so much so, I gave up on refrigerating and just let them sit in front of my fan until they are crusted but its time consuming.... Question, Do you think if I use ganache to cover my cakes this will avoid sweating?

Only if you refrigerate the cake after applying the ganache.  Once again, it's not the ingredients, it's the humidity.  Cold fridge, hot room air = condensation.  There's no way around it other than not refrigerating it.

ASo, cover cake with the ganche first then refrigerate... and hopefully it won't sweat?