I'VE HAD IT! Does this happen to anyone else besides me?

Last week we (divaricks my business partner) did a shoe box cake but it developed a huge blowout (pocket of air under the crusted buttercream) after only a few minutes of completion!!! I was surprised but Divaricks said that it happens far more often than I know about it, she usually just fixes it the next day - although this one was quite an extreme case.

We have three wedding cakes over the next 6 weeks and I don't want this to be an issue with them! What can I do???

Many of the hints that I've read talk about the cake temperature but we don't freeze or refrigerate our cakes at all so everything is at room temp.

This particular cake was iced in crusting cream cheese - but most are regular crusting bc.

Often we use fruit jams or preserves for fillings - but this one was filled and iced in only cream cheese.

Some things that I believe contributed to the extreme case of this cake:
-it had been raining all day.
-we cut off a portion of the cake to make a square a rectangle. The bubble was only on the cut side.

I've read about pricking the icing as a prevention but am not sure how that works. Don't the holes show? Does the air really escape through the pre-made hole?

Can ANYONE HELP ME!!! What has worked for you?

I am not very experienced but I have noticed this on some of my cakes also. I have no idea about temperature because I have done both ways and still has slight issues with this. I had more of an issue when using fondant and especially on stacked cakes. I am thinking it has something to do with the cake settling/shrinking in height and there is no where for the displaced air to go when the cake has been sealed good/well with icing and or fondant. I just poke a small hole somewhere inconspicuous and smooth it back over or cover with decorations. Because of this I try to cover my cakes the night before decorating with any embelishment to allow the cakes to settle under the new weight of icing/fondant over night and then decorate in the AM. But I would love to know more!!!

I can only come up with 2 things right now that might be effecting your cake:

1) Are you by any chance using the cake icing tip to apply the icing. If you are then you have to make sure the icing is adhered well to your cake other wise it will create air pockets. I had this happen to me the 1st time I used the tip. I haven't used it since

2) The other thing is making sure your cake has enough time to settle after you have filled it.

Bloomin Blowouts!

I'm afraid I cant help you marccrand as I don't use cream cheese frosting, but I also have the same problem with fondant (not always but sometimes - which makes it all the more confusing!) In particular my last cake that was done last week. In my case I think it was to do with temperature, the cake was left to settle and covered in fondant, looked fine, left it overnight and when I checked it in the morning still fine, took it to work with me in the morning and still fine, my mum turns up 4 hours later to pick it up and it has a blowout.. on the top! It just wouldn't stay down whatever I did! it already had a hole in as the whole blowout had cracked.. yes it was that large! So no pin pricks were going to help!

The only thing I could put it down to was temperature as the office is normally quite warm, much warmer than my house or car, it is sooo annoying but gladly doesn't happen too often and in this case it was near the back so not too noticable! If anyone can think of another factor in this case I would like to hear their opinions - anything that can help prevent it happening again!

Cheers

This rarely happens to me,the first one was when i stacked a 9" on top of a 12" with no dowell rods,that was obviously caused by weight.Usually when i'm covering cake in fondant it happens at times but once i prick the bubble with a toothpick and it's fine,it might have a tiny dot where the toothpick went in but i'll rather have that than bubbles.

Also i never bake and ice the same day,i always do it the next day to allow the cake settle to the fullest.

Oh yeah same here never bake and ice same day... only get the chance to bake/decorate at night and am normally falling asleep waiting to take it out of the oven lol, so it normally has plenty of time to rest.

I am not sure, but I have never had this problem until I had to take a cake to a party barn last summer. It was hot, and the humidity was high. I was finishing the wedding cake itself (iced with BC) when my husband came over to me, and told me that the extra sheet cake was blowing up. Not knowing what he meant, I went to check it, and there was the biggest bubble on the top. (I had even used an icing stabilizer in the icing, knowing it was going to be humid) I had to prick it with a pin, (and of course it blubbed flat like a balloon) I had to reice the top, and add some flowers where it did this.
So out of this boring story, could it be humidity causing this? Mine was extreme for this cake, but we all can have varying degrees of humidity in our kitchens.