Three Cakes + Two Blowouts = *headdesk*
Decorating By PiccoloChellie Updated 26 May 2010 , 10:32pm by mim1106
So the family is having our Memorial Day picnic a week early this year (Sunday). I offered to bring a cake, of course, and decided to try out a S'mores cake. At the last minute my fella and I were invited to dinner at some friends' house (Saturday) and I figured I'd just double up the recipe and bring a little 6" to dinner with us and keep the extra 6" to snack on at home.
Made some gumpaste flowers during the week. Baked up the chocolate graham cake - delicious. Left them to settle overnight. Leveled, torted, perfect. Chocolate buttercream came together beautifully. Damn, this is going great!
Piped a nice stiff dam of buttercream in all the right places. Spooned on some marshmallow fluff and patted that down. Stacked the layers up neatly...whoops, a little marshmallow escaped the dam on one of the 6" cakes, but I smoothed it down and crumb coated that one first.
Crumb coated the other two cakes, left them to set for a little bit.
Headed out to my baking station after 15 minutes or so and...
S#*+. There's marshmallow oozing out of the picnic cake and the 6" cake that had started oozing before.
My heart skips a beat. Gently smooth down the marshmallow and apply a little more buttercream over top, hoping to seal the leak. Wait 5 minutes. Ooze continues. Copiously.
Profanities.
More smoothing. More buttercream.
More profanities.
Pause in the middle of writing this post. Ooze has slowed but it yet continues.
The picnic cake will now be touted as iced with chocolate-marshmallow buttercream and will have a nice coating of crushed graham crackers patted on the sides....if the filling ever stops oozing.
If one of the 6" cakes survives, that's going to dinner tomorrow night. I've got chocolate at the ready to make shards for the sides if needed.
We'll eat the ugliest one.
Next on the agenda: find a recipe for marshmallow filling that'll stay IN the cake. 
/ugh/
had this same issue the ONE time i made a smores cake.
haven't made one since.
if i did, i guess i'd try to mix some extra powdered sugar into the fluff to firm it up a bit...??
Well, touch wood the picnic cake seems to have stopped oozing. I may not even need to coat the sides with anything. One of the small cakes never oozed and is still in good shape, so that one's going to dinner tomorrow.
The other 6-incher continues to ooze. I think it's a goner. I am SO glad one of these was for us to keep at home anyways!
/ugh/
had this same issue the ONE time i made a smores cake.
haven't made one since.
if i did, i guess i'd try to mix some extra powdered sugar into the fluff to firm it up a bit...??
That's a thought. Perhaps I could mix minis into the cake batter itself and mix fluff into regular buttercream for the filling? I dunno.
The fluff seemed extremely sturdy as I spooned it out of the tub. It pretty much stayed right where I put it when I plopped it on the cake...I was actually wondering to myself if I'd even needed a dam.
I have marshmallow fluff in my hair and I feel like it's still all over my hands even after washing them several times. I currently do not like fluff. No sir, I do not.
The big cake survived. Of course it gave me problems...my buttercream never really crusted over so I didn't get the smooth finish I wanted.
Still. I'm rather fond of how it came out all told. There was a little marbling at the site of the worst blowout, so I covered that bit up with some flowers. 
Gonna put the finishing touches on the small cake for dinner in a bit. Since that didn't ooze, the only real issue is the non-crusted icing which, hopefully, I can hide the worst of the flaws.
*sigh*
I've got a big order for next weekend - 4dz cuppies, 4dz petit fours, 4dz favor cookies. This streak of bad luck had best end right now!
Ugh! I would be so ticked! That ooze is more of a break in the dam. Could you have made a "plug" out of the other cake and stuffed a plug of sorts into it?
I have never used fluff out of the tub for filling. I've used the cupcake filling recipe...handmade... for cake fluff-filling and its never broke free of the dam.
Ugh! I would be so ticked! That ooze is more of a break in the dam. Could you have made a "plug" out of the other cake and stuffed a plug of sorts into it?
I have never used fluff out of the tub for filling. I've used the cupcake filling recipe...handmade... for cake fluff-filling and its never broke free of the dam.
Once we dissected the cakes, it seemed more like I overfilled and it ran over the dam. The dam itself looked to have stayed intact. It was hard to tell because the fluff still inside COMPLETELY DISAPPEARED into the cake! I swear, I cut into the "keep at home" cake before we took the other cake to dinner and there was no visible fluff!
The torted areas that soaked up the fluff were wonderfully marshmallowy tasting and extra moist, though. It definitely tasted like s'mores - fantastic tasting, actually - it just didn't have the look I wanted.
The dinner cake never leaked and it, too, soaked up the filling. I thought it came out pretty cute. Our dinner hosts were impressed and their kids were in heaven.
http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1682137
Got lots of "WOW!!" comments at the picnic and a few of my relatives were asking me "How do you get the frosting so smooth??" I wanted to ask them if we were looking at the same cake. 
Oh well. There was only 1 slice left, so I'll take it as a success.
Do you mind sharing which cupcake filling you used? Was it nice and marshmallowy? I'd like to do this cake again proper with a big 'ol layer of white filling in the tortes.
You could always do chocolate filling and then ice the outside with the toasted marshmallow icing:
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/delicious-chocolate-graham-cracker-cupcake-with-toasted-marshmallow
You could always do chocolate filling and then ice the outside with the toasted marshmallow icing:
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/delicious-chocolate-graham-cracker-cupcake-with-toasted-marshmallow
*drool* That looks really good, I've bookmarked the recipe. Thank you!!
Sorry about your mishaps, but your picture of the oozing fluff made me laugh out loud. It just looked funny. I want to make this cake now, you made it sound sooo delicious! Is the graham cake recipe on here? let me go search.....
Believe me, after a while of constant ooze all I could do was laugh too.
The recipe I started with is on this big list:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=df4f9hbq_46cs9f28fs
Just Ctrl-F and search for "graham" - should be a few clicks down under Chocolate Covered Graham Cracker. It really was a delicious cake, if a PITA with the rampant fluff ooze. 
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