Hi! Hoping someone can lend some advice. Steps I normally take for making a cake are to level, fill, crumbcoat, cover with saran wrap and put in the fridge. After a couple hours I take it out then put on final coat. The cake looks great and is smooth. The next day I've been getting bubbles forming. I can put a hole with a pin or toothpick but even if I try and smooth it out again I can tell it's there. Is there something going wrong with my process? This is how I was taught (in Florida) but I'm in Missouri and maybe our weather/humidity is affecting it. Any feedback is welcome. Thanks!

There have been lots of discussion on this and lots of different ideas about what causes it. It is either getting too warm or it seems to me that it is when the icing is not adhered well to the side of the cake. If you are getting bubbles every time, it could the refrigeration time in between the crumbcoat and final coat. I think the crumbcoast could be too cold for the final coat to adhere to and that seems to be the main culprit. I only occasionally get bubbles and it's usually when it's really hot. All of my cakes are treated the same so I think it has to do mainly with buttercream adhering to the cake (or crumbcoat in your case.) HTH!

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I don't think it has anything to do with your refrigeration - I do the same thing, and I never get bubbles. Although I only chill for around 30-45 minutes before fully coating the cake.

Do you think it's bubbles inside your cake possibly leaking out (from between the layers)? I would test out what Leah pasted in and see if you can make sure the air bubbles are completely removed between layers.

Otherwise - when I do the final coat of buttercream on my cake, a chef instructor in school told us to run it on a mixer on low for around 10 minutes to knock out all the air bubbles and gie it a pretty glossy finish. Maybe that could help?

Awesome, awesome, awesome! Thank you all! I was looking for causes and solutions before I posted my question but wasn't finding a whole lot with my searches. I just spent the last hour reading posts (thanks for pointing me in the right direction Leah_s!) I'm going with the tile method and running my spachula under the cake AND decorating at room temperature because it sounds like all of it was an issue. Thanks again your feedback is GREATLY appreciated!