I'm finishing up a cake right now and it's my first time using an impression mat, heck it's my first time using the Viva paper towel method and I'm loving it.
I let my BC sit a bit and then smoothed with VIVA. Worked great. Then went to try the impression mat. I did alight spray with cooking spray (I thought I read that somewhere) and my BC started coming off the cake. I quickly tried my best to resmooth with VIVA. Is it the cooking spray that did this...do I just use it dry and hope the BC doesn't stick?
Also the BC is purple and the spray seemed to have started changing the color a bit to pink....

no cooking spray. that is the culprit. let the cake crust well, and use a clean dry mat, that you can even dust with cornstarch a little

HTH

I don't know that the spray would cause a color change, but regular gel/paste purples often fade to pinks or blues when exposed to any type of light for any length of time.

I know you can't decorate in the dark , but it can be a real issue. I've invested in some no-fade purple by ChefMaster and I love the results.

HTH
Rae

It got to the be the cooking spray causing you pain. Next time rub a bit of shortening on your hands and work it in.

Thanks everyone. I dried off the mat and let the icing crust a little more and it was ok. Of course it didn't mattter because I hated the purple color that seemed to fade out, so I wnet over it with fondant anyway. The mat was still tough on the fondant but that was probably because I had to do it after the cake was already stacked....