I made a cake not long ago with fondant accents. It was decorated the night before but by morning the fondant was melting. ...flowers, cats tails were falling over and other things drooping. What causes it and how can I prevent it from happening again? I know it has been very humid lately, but we do have central air in the house. The cake was not refrigerated..

Did you use plain fondant? Did you mix anything with fondant? Fondant on its own is too soft to hold shapes. I mix my fondant with tylose, others mix 50/50 with gumpaste. If I were to make a rose out of plain fondant it would just droop and sag.

~Kim

How did you store the cake? I have had this problem when storing cakes in my Wilton cake carrier because it is airtight. I have since learned that fondant covered cake and fondant decorations should not be stored in airtight containers or they melt/droop due to the trapped moisture.

Did you make your fondant accents in advance (a few days) and allow them to dry? Fondant takes a while to dry and of course, that process takes longer in humidity.

What kind of fondant did you use? My favorite is fondarific, but I found that in the summer, no matter what I add to it, it tends to melt.

Same thing happened to me, and yes you are right to connect the 'no refrigerator'. I put the next one in the fridge and it was fine.

I am not sure the brand of the fondant because it was ready made and bought from a bulk food store . I have used it before and by far tastes better than other brands I have tried...even home made. I stored it on the counter in the cake carrier, and made the decorations as I went along. Usually I coat my hands with shortening before shaping the fondant to the desired shape. I think it gives the fondant a nice sheen. But I am thinking that the reason could be is that I didn't allow the decorations to dry before hand...just made them and attached them to the cake.
thanks for all your repsonses.

Crisco won't keep the decorations from drying, if you leave them out long enough to dry. Storing decorations in an air tight container will keep them from drying out.

Also storing a cake with fondant decorations in an air tight container will allow the decorations to pick up moisture from the cake.

I made a cake with gumpaste roses. Straight gumpaste, and the roses had been dried for a good month. I made the mistake of closing the cake up in a cake carrier. In less than three hours the rock hard gumpaste roses and wilted and completely lost their shape. They asorbed moisture even though there was no question about them being completely dried before going in there.

Crisco won't keep the decorations from drying, if you leave them out long enough to dry. Storing decorations in an air tight container will keep them from drying out.

Also storing a cake with fondant decorations in an air tight container will allow the decorations to pick up moisture from the cake.

I made a cake with gumpaste roses. Straight gumpaste, and the roses had been dried for a good month. I made the mistake of closing the cake up in a cake carrier. In less than three hours the rock hard gumpaste roses and wilted and completely lost their shape. They asorbed moisture even though there was no question about them being completely dried before going in there.

I refrigerate my cakes after they are decorated and I have never had any problems with my fondant melting. I also like to let my fondant decorations air dry a little before placing them on cakes if possible.

Like I said earlier, if you are storing a fondant covered or fondant decorated cake in the Wilton cake carrier, your fondant will start to melt/droop. I've had it happen with multiple brands of fondant, with pieces that were partly dried before putting on the cake, and with a completely fondant covered cake.

I've had similar problems in the past. Sometimes I don't have the time to completely dry out my pieces. I now use modeling chocolate (a mix of chocolate and corn syrup- very easy to make) for the shape and cover that in fondant. It works like a charm and tastes delicious.