Chocolate Buttercream Pulling Away From Cake!

Decorating By Snowflakebunny23 Updated 1 May 2013 , 7:10am by suzied

Snowflakebunny23 Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
Snowflakebunny23 Posted 29 Apr 2013 , 6:16pm
post #1 of 6

AHi all, I am having a buttercream disasters and its starting to get really annoying! I use a standard recipe of 2:1 icing sugar to stork and then add either cocoa powder or melted chocolate to taste. It tastes georgeous but for some reason, it will not stick to a cake! The plain buttercream is fine, but when I put in the chocolate, it won't play ball! It sortof peels away at the back as I am spreading it towards me and looses the light fluffy texture all together. Has anyone else experienced this before? I've tried with warmer butter and cooler butter but neither seems to make a difference. Would be great for any ideas! Many thanks :-)

5 replies
Stitches Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
Stitches Posted 29 Apr 2013 , 7:49pm
post #2 of 6
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowflakebunny23 

I use a standard recipe of 2:1 icing sugar to stork and then add either cocoa powder or melted chocolate to taste.

I could probably help you but I'm not understanding what you wrote. Can you explain what you consider a 2:1 sugar to stork to be???

 

 

When you add cocoa powder to recipes not  already adjusted for it, typically you subtract out the cocoa powders weight from your flour (when you baking) or xxxsugar with a frosting. So a bunch of things could be going wrong with your frosting making it not stick to your cake.

  1. You've got too dry of a frosting so it's not sticking well.
  2. Your using too much melted chocolate so when the frosting firms up the chocolate becomes too hard and it pulls away from the cake.
Snowflakebunny23 Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
Snowflakebunny23 Posted 29 Apr 2013 , 8:21pm
post #3 of 6

AHi there Stitches, by 2:1 I mean 2 parts icing sugar to 1 part Stork margarine (sorry, Stork is the brand name here in the uk which works fabulously for baking and plain buttercream!). I guess I could try subtracting the cocoa from the icing sugar quantity so it is not as 'dry' but I'm not sure what difference it would make...you can add bucket loads of icing sugar to buttercream and it just seems to get sweeter (without altering the texture).

When using melted chocolate I always let it cool a little before adding it to the butter/sugar and then use it neigh instantly so it does not have time to 'set' but still makes no difference.

The mixture pipes beautifully for cupcakes but doesn't seem to like spreading with a knife.

Thanks in advance for your comments, they're much appreciated :-)

Stitches Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
Stitches Posted 30 Apr 2013 , 12:51am
post #4 of 6
Quote:
Originally Posted .

The mixture pipes beautifully for cupcakes but doesn't seem to like spreading with a knife.

 

Oh my, I have no experience using margarine in frostings, sorry. But the basic issue is the consistency of the frosting. It doesn't have enough body to be spread with a knive then it isn't the right type of frosting for larger surfaces like cakes.

BakingIrene Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
BakingIrene Posted 30 Apr 2013 , 9:37pm
post #5 of 6
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowflakebunny23 

Hi all, I am having a buttercream disasters and its starting to get really annoying! I use a standard recipe of 2:1 icing sugar to stork and then add either cocoa powder or melted chocolate to taste. It tastes georgeous but for some reason, it will not stick to a cake! The plain buttercream is fine, but when I put in the chocolate, it won't play ball! It sortof peels away at the back as I am spreading it towards me and looses the light fluffy texture all together. Has anyone else experienced this before? I've tried with warmer butter and cooler butter but neither seems to make a difference. Would be great for any ideas! Many thanks icon_smile.gif

 

Stork (good quality margarine) is perfectly good for making icing.

 

The cocoa is absorbing some of the water present in the stork.

 

So you need to add cream or water or corn syrup or some other liquid until the consistency is soft enough to stick to the cake.

 

Melted chocoalte might be doing something similar, I would fix it the same way.

suzied Cake Central Cake Decorator Profile
suzied Posted 1 May 2013 , 7:10am
post #6 of 6

Add some milk, a couple of table spoons should make it stick on to the cake.

Quote by @%username% on %date%

%body%