I have just moved to South Carolina from Arizona. I learned cake decorating while out there and never had trouble with any of my icings. Now that we have moved to South Carolina, I am having trouble with my icing being too soft. I have tried to add more powdered sugar but when it comes to doing roses, the icing still is not thick enough. SOMEBODY HELP!!!!!!

I would try refridgerating it...once the hot weather hits, I start freaking out because my icing does not behave itself....I'm sorry, I feel your pain!

Are you using a buttercream icing. You may need to go all shortening to stand up to that moisture and heat. I'm here in AZ now but came from LA where humidity was tough.

Good Luck.

Dee

When dealing with heat and humidity unfortunately butter is not your friend. I live in South Louisiana and use an all Crisco Buttercream which has served me well - haven't had a disaster yet (crossing fingers)!

I'm in South Mississippi. It doesn't get much more humid than that. It's always an issue here. I even have problems with fondant.

Instead of adding more sugar, use less liquid than your normal recipe. Also, I use a 1/4 margarine or butter and 3/4 shortening ratio recipe. Since Crisco is now trans fat free, I have also been adding Dream Whip to my recipe to stabilize it .

Here is a picture of one of my cakes with the new Crisco and before I started using Dream Whip. Look at the lower border. The humidity here makes the icing almost drip off the cake. I had that happen last summer. The icing literally slid off the cake. Hope this helps

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1052563

You can add meringue powder to your buttercream to help it behave. Also, try putting the base of the rose in the freezer for a few minutes before you pipe the petals, and then put the whole thing in the fridge on the rose nail for a little while before you put it on the cake.


I'm using a lot of fondant lately because it seems to do better in hot, humid weather.

I would say switch to an all shortening buttercream and start using fondant. Down here there are a lot of outdoor weddings and a cake decorated in buttercream is just not optional.

I live in Ky.. and they say it could snow on Monday and be 90 degrees but feel like 110 with the humidity on Tues.. Ok not that drastic LOL but... During the summer months I pack up my chocopan because the humidity makes that stuff VERY hard to work with... and my bc has hi ratio so it doesn't effect that much at all