Buttercream Rose Cake problem

Hi there

I am hoping there is some here that can help me.....I'm kind of panicking a little bit!

I made a buttercream rose cake today....like the one I am Baker 'invented' and after the cake was transported into the car I peeked inside the box to ensure it was still okay and I noticed one of the rose swirls on the side was pulling away from the cake. I have made quite a number of these cakes and I have NEVER  had this happen before. The party isn't until tomorrow so now I am totally freaking out that the roses are going to start falling off!  I also have a number of orders coming up for this style of cake so I have to get this problem figured out ASAP!

Any advise on what the problem could be would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much in advance!

Jennifer

Thank you both so much for your response. I did crumb coat the cake....do you think maybe it wasnt thick enough? I did let it dry as I normally would with a crumb coat....should I not let it dry so it's stick 'sticky' to help the roses stick on? Some of the roses were overlapping a little too because of spacing so I wonder if that contributed to the problem??  I'm baffled because this has never happened before and nervous about it now because I have quite a few to make this summer. Any other suggestions on what I should or shouldnt be doing would be very much appreciated.

Thanks 

Thank you icer101 for the link. I checked it out and that is exactly what I did. The only difference is that my cake was a full three layers so it wasn't possible to do only one large rose on the sides. I also forgot to address evoir's comment about whether or not the icing was too stiff. I make my buttercream on the 'fluffy' side:

1/2 cup butter

3 - 3.5 cups icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3 Tbsp cream

This makes a nice light fluffy buttercream so I don't think the issue was the consistency, but then again I am not a true professional at this so maybe I am mistaken.

I got to thinking about it more earlier this evening and I am wondering if maybe the cake circle I used wasn't strong enough for the size of cake??  I typically make this cake in only two layers but this particular customer asked for three layers. Usually the basic cardboard cake board is sufficient but I am wondering if maybe because this cake was heavier the basic cake board wasn't sufficient and the cake started to move??

Any thoughts??

Thanks :)

Well, it turns out that I got a call from my customer that a small section of roses fell off!   I drove over this morning to her home to assess and fix the cake. After assessing the situation, I still cannot figure out why they fell off!  There were about 3-4 that fell off in one section on the side at the bottom. The crumb coat of icing was still attached to the cake. I added another thing crumb coat and reapplied new rose swirls...I sure hope they stayed on this time.

If anyone has any idea or suggestions on what could have happened I would be forever grateful!  I have to make another cake like this is February and want to make sure that this doesnt happen again.

Thanks

Thank you K8Memphis for your reply   It's always hard to not beat myself up over something like this because it's a bit embarrassing when a cake someone buys starts to fall apart   Luckily, my customer was so kind and understanding and was grateful that I drove to her place to fix it....she was a 30 minute drive away!

So, it sounds like it could have been a couple of things:

1. I let the crumb coat crust over too much. Next time I will ice the roses on directly after crumb coating.

2. The cake board was maybe too weak. I think I'll just start taping two together for all of my cakes for better stability. I buy the wilton ones and find they're a little weak for some of my cakes and the Wilton drums are far too expensive to use for an 8-inch cake.

Thanks again for your reply and great advice!