I know this has been discussed however I was unable to find any of the topics. Can I refrigerate a cake covered in Fondant? If not, how or what do I do if the filling or icing require refrigeration?

There is a wedding cake due that will be covered in brown fondant. It is a lemon cake iced with cream cheese icing.

Final question - if I do refrigerate what are the possible problems I might encounter?

Any help will be appreciated.

Katherine

There are some risk but it depends on many variables.

The main risks are - the fondant starts sweating in the fridge, the fondant starts sweating when you take it out or the fondant gets soft in the fridge.

What you can do in advance - test your icing / fondant / fridge combo. Simply set a piece of fondant on a plate, heaping tablespoon of icing on it and set it in your fridge for 2 days or for as long as you will need the cake stay there (maximum).
This shows how prone is your combination to problems.

To counter possible problems:
Fondant sweating in the fridge - is caused by the humidity in the fridge. My new fridge has waterdrops running on the back inside. In this case you could - put the cake in cardboard box, all this in plastic bag and close it well. Additional humidity won't get to your cake and often when, it makes the box soggy, not the cake. Alternatively - drop the temperature in the fridge until you freeze this waterdrops - but this brings other problem - sweating fondant when taking out of the fridge.

Fondant sweating when the cake is taken out from the fridge - best you can do is to set air fan (cool air) to blow at your cake - it helps to dry this condensation faster.

Fondant getting too soft in the fridge - mostly not a problem with fondant covering the cake, but with decorations. Best you can do in this case is to add the decorations in the last possible moment - after the cake is taken out of the fridge again.

Another risk are bleeding colors - avoid painting on the fondant if you can. Colored fondant is not as much of a problem as "straight" color. Ideally, avoid black and vivid red at all, these are very risky.

Now I listed the risks - but it is quite possible you will be OK without any prevention necessary. There are many people here who can refrigerate fondant with no problem at all.

Good luck to you.

Another option would be to use a cream cheese frosting that doesn't need refrigeration. Earlene has one on her website http://www.earlenescakes.com/icings.htm