I've been searching forums for forever and haven't found the answers I'm looking for. Please help!

It's July, it's hot as Hades and I live in Texas. I made a two-tiered cake the other day and I refrigerated it overnight. I used buttercream and marshmallow fondant. After it was out of the fridge for say, ten minutes, it was a wet gooey mess! How can I avoid this? Should I not refrigerate or will that spoil the buttercream? I'm doing another cake tonight that I'm delivering tomorrow evening to a hospital an hour away and I'm worried it will melt and be disgusting by the time I get there. Should I use store bought fondant? I only have access to the Wilton kind right now. What should I do???

In the summer I use a standard high ratio shortening buttercream (without butter) then cover the cake in homemade marshmallow fondant. I do refrigerate my cakes because it makes deliveries less scary and yes, my cakes glow but they don't melt. Can you use a high-ratio shortening icing under your fondant and make the fondant stiffer by adding more powdered sugar?

I live in hot humid Missouri. I've had the best success with chocolate ganache under MFF. Fortunately my car has A/C, but still, it gets scary delivering.

Jan

I use chocolate ganache 2:1 ratio or a crusting BC made with way more shortening that margarine. I use margarine instead of butter in my BC. My 1st cake was made with an all-butter BC. I have never used it since that 1st day 3 years ago. Way too unstable for our 90 degrees. It was melting and sliding off the cake in my kitchen before I even delivered it.

I live in Dallas, so I can feel your pain! I find that the only surefire way to make sure a fondant cake survives this heat is to use ganache underneath your fondant. I just made a cake covered in ganache, using Duff's fondant. Made the cake on Sunday, boxed it, and left it in a semi-cool room (80 degrees at most). Delivered it on Monday where it sat in a semi-cool motor home all day. We didn't get around to cutting/eating it until Tuesday afternoon. No melting, wonderful flavor and moistness. The fondant stayed firm, but still a good texture when cut.