I made a cake last night for a birthday party this afternoon (as of now, it's still in one piece - the sesame street one in my photos) but had such a hard time with it. I do this as a hobby and this cake is my gift (for my BFF's daughter). I work a full time job and have 3 small children so my time is limited and, as a result, I do as much as I can when I have the time.

So, here were my issues:

1. My BC acted a little crazy. I used IndyDebi's recipe and the only change was using heavy whipping cream instead of milk. I couldn't get it to crust like it usually does. Could the cream be the difference? Also I made it last weekend and had it in the fridge all week but took it out in the morning so it got to room temp and used the hand mixer on it before icing my cakes.

2. My fondant polka dots I made in advance and stored in a tupperware container. I've done this before but this time when I went to check on them some of them got hard and brittle and I couldn't use them. Why?

3. My fondant street sign (I used gumtex mixed in) broke in half I was able to fix it with white chocolate but I can see the crack. I made this sign a few weeks back and let it sit out to get hard/stable but I'm not really sure what happened. Should I have used a fondant/GP mix or something?

I was left feeling pretty "angry" at this cake but my friend and her DH really like it. It's in the fridge and will remain there until we leave for the party. Oh, and I used BC to attach the character faces - will it hold?! I'm scared that they're all going to fall off! Sorry this got long but I'm trying to learn from my mistakes here. Thanks for reading and helping out if you got this far

When I make fondant plaques I use fondant and Tylose mixed. I let them dry in the oven light on only for several days. As for the butter cream I haven't tried that recipe because so far I have been happy with my crusting butter cream but maybe the extra fat from the cream might have caused a problem. Do you live in a humid location? I find that if the humidity is high I have issues when making cakes. I use butter cream to attach decorations all the time. If they are not to heavy you can put a circle of frosting on the back of your decoration to create a little suction while the frosting has time to crust. If I use heavy decorations I add a toothpick to the back using royal icing. Great job on the cake. If your friends happy that's what matters.

Thanks...maybe the extra fat from the cream did have something to do with it since it's the fat/sugar ratio that affects crusting. And next time, I'll try to make my decorations closer to the party date. Well, it was a huge hit at the party, stayed together and tasted great