Hi there, I'm a baking newbie and want to make my Mother in Law a buttercream iced cake and decorate it with fondant pieces if I can. I was thinking of trying the faux fondant look using Viva towels. I made this past weekend some cupcakes iced with buttercream (half shortening and half butter) and topped with MMF pieces that had set out for several days to firm up. I iced, decorated, and covered the cupcakes the night before and placed them in the fridge. The fondant decorations wilted and eventually melted by the time they got to the party. I am now reading that it's better not to put fondant in the fridge because of condensation - do you think they melted from refridgeration only? Or does the buttercream contain too much moisture to be decorated with fondant? Would it be wise to use a royal icing or melted chocolate barrier to keep this from happening to my next cake? Or do you think letting the buttercream crust, then "glueing" decorations on with a bit of buttercream and leaving OUT of the fridge would work well? I definitely want to be able to decorate the night before on my next cake if I can. I have three kiddos and am a stay at home Mom so anything I can do in advance aside from freezing helps. OH, and also, would adding gumpaste make any difference in the amount of time it would take to begin to melt and break down the decorations or is there no difference? Any suggestions or help that can be offered are much appreciated! Thank you!

Good question! I have a cake coming up that I was going to try this on - I never thought about it being a problem, so I'm anxious to see what's said!

Fondant decorations on buttercream work fine as long as you don't cover the finished cake in an airtight plastic container.
Most of my cakes are buttercream with fondant decorations. I just put my finished cakes in boxes. The icing keeps them from going stale. Once the cake is cut, you can put the leftovers in plastic containers because it won't matter how it looks anymore.

I use fondant decor on butter cream all the time including on cupcakes. I make a lot of flowers and leaves out of fondant and once the cupcakes are covered for delivery I know I only have a matter of hours before those nice firm beautiful leaves will slump over. The moisture from the butter cream has to have a place to go and once the cake is boxed up (or refrigerated because refrigerators are moist environments) then your perfectly dried decorations will not stay that way. I leave my finished cakes (including cupcakes) uncovered and and on the counter until right before delivery. HTH

If you look in my photo's I just made a buttercream cake with polka dots and a #1 fondant for the top and I had no problem's with mine.. I left mine uncovered in the fridge until I delivered it. The girl I delivered it to left it out on her counter until the party started (about 6 hours later) and it still looked great. I also use a 1/2 butter 1/2 shortening buttercream...
Not sure why yours would sink in like that. I so far haven't had that problem.

I don't think fondant accents on the BC is a problem. I believe the refrigeration is what messed up the decorations. I once placed gumpaste flowers on top of a BC cake and put the finished cake (covered) in the fridge. When I brought our the cake, as it came to room temp my gum paste flowers and leaves just wilted. I think it would be best to ice the cake, refrigerate, bring it back to room temp and then add the accents before delivery.

Unless you're using perishable fillings, I don't see any need to refrigerate a cake.