AThis was the first time I used ganache under MMF. The cake was looking slightly moist so I placed it in the refrigerator overnight. I took it out the next day and had a sloppy mess on my hand. The cake was due the next day so started over (the graduation cap and medal were okay to reuse). Instead of using MMF I ran to the store and purchased Duff's fondant and it turned out okay.... Even after refrigeration. No melting. This has me baffled! The first picture is the melted cake and the second one was redone. [IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3250037/width/200/height/400[/IMG][IMG]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3250038/width/200/height/400[/IMG]
AWas the cake in a really warm room before you put it in the frige? Looks like a condensation meltdown.
AThe finished cake is awesome, by the way.
Also, what type of ganash is it? If it's scratch, what type of cream did you use?
AThe room was OK... Approximately 73 degrees with central air. The ganache was from scratch and I used the Stop & Shop brand heavy cream. Thanks for your compliment! Was the error in using homemade mmf? The commercially prepared stuff held up with no problems.
AWhere do you get packaged/premade ganache? I'd [B]have[/B] to try that out of sheer curiosity. Never heard of it.
Refrigerating ganache isn't necessary, especially if your room temp is cool. Hard to tell exactly what happened, could be the fondant, condensation, the ganache recipe, etc. Try a ganache without sour cream next time, just a standard couverture chocolate and heavy cream one, and don't refrigerate.
A
Original message sent by AZCouture
Where do you get packaged/premade ganache? I'd [B]have[/B] to try that out of sheer curiosity. Never heard of it.
Refrigerating ganache isn't necessary, especially if your room temp is cool. Hard to tell exactly what happened, could be the fondant, condensation, the ganache recipe, etc. Try a ganache without sour cream next time, just a standard couverture chocolate and heavy cream one, and don't refrigerate.
The fondant that I used on the second go round was commercially prepared... Not the ganache. The ganache was made using regular cream. Stop & Shop is a grocery chain that sells some products under their store brand.
This whole thing has me baffled! I just don't want to have to pull another all nighter to fix this mess again.
AI knew you made your ganache, I was referring to another person's question inferring that there was premade ganache available. Shoot... If Albert Uster offers it, I bet it's [B]good[/B], that's a gourmet food distributor for sure. Thanks, rfisher, I'll check it out.
MMF doesn't have gums/stabilizers in it, so it's softer. If moisture formed between the ganache & the fondant, it would look like that--thin spots would melt & run.
I doubt that there was a problem with the ganache. It's not a very wet icing.
Did you mist the cake, or use anything else, to adhere the fondant to the cake? Was the cake cold when you applied the ganache (and it was sweating???)?
And, it may not seem like it, but 73F is kinda warm to a cake that's been stored in a 38F refrigerator overnight. That will cause sweat--condensation--and that will melt fondant. Your description says it all: "The cake was looking slightly moist so I placed it in the refrigerator overnight. I took it out the next day and had a sloppy mess on my hand."....................
I haven't used a lot of MMF, but when I have, I've found it to be somewhat sticky when rolled out, especially on the back side. If it's sticky, it will stick without any added moisture.
I use purchased fondant. I roll it about 1/8" thick on a smear of vegetable shortening [crisco] on a single piece of food safe vinyl [the Mat]. I never, ever, roll on "dust" [cornstarch or powdered sugar UNLESS I'm using a candy melt based fondant like Duff's or Fondarific]. I pick up the fondant on my rolling pin, so the back side goes on the cake. I usually chill my iced cakes [butter & meringue based] in the fridge while I'm rolling out the fondant. That means that only the icing is cold & firm, but the cake is probably very close to room temp. I smooth the fondant and leave the cake at room temp [unless it's one that I'm freezing completely decorated] until delivery. I very rarely get bubbles between the icing and fondant and the fondant doesn't doesn't slide or slump [but that's also a result of those gums/drying agents in the commercial fondant and one of the reasons that I don't really like MMF].
Holy cow! The "melting" happened to me this last weekend. I put my ruffled wedding cakes in my cooler and when I went to get them out on delivery day, I had melted ruffles! The crazy thing was, it was only my two biggest cakes and only half of them. Luckily, I was able to scrape off the melted part and re-ruffle. It all worked out and my bride loved it! I was doing some serious sweating for a bit though!
Was it only the red MMF that 'melted'? How much coloring did you have to put in it to achieve the red color? I never make my own red or black. I've heard that the amount of coloring you need to add to get a true red is a lot and can cause the fondant to break down. Just a thought.
I had a major issue with fondant sliding off a cake when I refrigerated it. I then read never to refrigerate fondant covered cakes. I haven't since, and I haven't had any issues.
AThe blue also melted but not as quickly as the red. I've never had an issue with refrigerating cakes covered with fondant. This one was already getting moist before refrigeration. Both colors needed a decent amount of color to reach the shade that I needed. Maybe the food color did break the fondant down as you said.
It's probably the amount and type of food coloring you used. If you're trying to get a really dark color use powdered food coloring and you'll avoid softening the fondant with too much glycerine etc.
Duff fondant is partly candy clay, so it has more stability and isn't as sensitive to moisture softening it up. If you want to get a similar result you can just add candy clay to your fondant 50/50 and it will firm it up. I don't use MMF so I don't know how firm that will make it, but it will add some "waterproofing" to it to a certain extent. I refrigerate fondant all the time and don't have issues with it softening up like that, but part of that could be how humid your refrigerator is.
@nikki1227 when you say that you put the ruffle cake in a cooler, was it a closed box with no air circulation? That will melt the fondant too, you need to have some air circulation or the fondant will absorb moisture from the air and soften up. It kind of recirculates into itself in a weird way.
@costumeczar , I have a double glass door cooler that I put my cakes in. It has a fan that circulates air in it and I didn't have cakes in box. I have no idea why it just happened on 2 of my cakes and it was just the 14" and the 12". The ruffles were a melted mess. I have never had this happen before! I am so glad that I checked on them that morning and didn't wait until a few hours before delivery, I would have had a big mess on my hands lol I never have a problem with buttercream cakes, just those fondant ones. Thanks for trying to give me some ideas!
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@costumeczar , I have a double glass door cooler that I put my cakes in. It has a fan that circulates air in it and I didn't have cakes in box. I have no idea why it just happened on 2 of my cakes and it was just the 14" and the 12". The ruffles were a melted mess. I have never had this happen before! I am so glad that I checked on them that morning and didn't wait until a few hours before delivery, I would have had a big mess on my hands lol I never have a problem with buttercream cakes, just those fondant ones. Thanks for trying to give me some ideas!
That's weird...Were the melted parts facing the same direction? If so it might be something with air not circulating in that one area, but it sounds more like a freak fondant event.
When I do ruffles I use a 50/50 fondant and candy clay so they're more pliable than fondant by itself. I think that also protects the refrigerated fondant to a certain extent.
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