I really haven't had a disaster yet, until today and really not that bad, but I was horrified just the same.

Made a cake night before and woke up in the morning to find the bc on the cake pooling grease. YUCK. . I go to take it off my cake wheel and the board bends. Guess what happened to the crusted icing, it #$#^% cracked. I figure, well I will just tell her I will give her a discount on the price since that happened.

Made another today, again covered in bc, looked ok, but not the greatest. Went to deliver it and by the time I got there, one slide broke away from the cake. Double ##%$%$ . I gave her a discount as well. They both seemed happy and ok with it, but I was pissed right off. Ughhhhh

I used to make very nice almost flawless bc on a cake, now I can't seem to smooth it to save my life. I use 50/50 margerine/crisco. I wonder if I should use all crisco. It was very hot here today, so heat and bc don't mix. I know I should also crumbcoat, I am sure that would help adhere the bc to prevent and sliding off. Am I right? I also had the crisco dot problem, which I thought I had resolved.

I may tell customers ordering a cake, if it ends up being very warm and I can cover it in fondant, it's getting covered. My fridge doesn't have enough room to put it in there, but I guess that's another option.

Here are my disaters. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Wow. I think this just prooves how much we can be our own worst enemies...
That being said, are you nuts?! Those cakes are SUPER cute! Honestly, I dont know why we all beat ourselves up over minimal imperfections. I just think of it this way, unless someone is paying the price of my mortgage for a cake, who cares?

margarine may be the culprite as i belive it has water and additional oils in it that aren't solid like butter..


i remember once when i made a cake and mistakenly bought margarine (think because it was cheaper lol- this was early in my decorating days)

i made a 3d girl with pig tails using the 3D teddy bear pan..

anyways to get to the disaster that happend.. after the cake had sat for a while... little Dolly's "makeup" began to run... in black! lol..

along with the yellow colorant used for her hair


this never happend when i used the butter/crisco version (aka wilton bc recipe)

well that is till everything went to 0 transfat (grumbles)

I can't see any flaws!!! Your cake is absolutely adorable!

Buttercream can sure be *%$#@! sometimes! I find that if I do a fifty/fifty butter to Crisco ratio and use whipping cream for the liquid my buttercream turns out just like it used to when Crisco had transfats.

Don't give up on buttercream just yet. Just play around with your recipe until you find something that works for you.

We all have bad cake days, I just wish my bad cakes looked as good as yours.

Thanks so much everyone. This pic was taken before the icing fell away from the cake. There are blue streaks in it as well. Anyway, I very much appreciate your advise. I am going to definately test out the other bc receipes.