I hope someone can help!!! I'm doing a wedding cake next week, a small three tier topsy turvy cake covered in fondant and I've never done fondant before. I've been watching videos on youtube, and reading everything I can find. I'm also practicing. One source said to cover the cake with buttercream, chill and then cover with fondant. OK. So I'm smoothing the fondant gently but the buttercream is squeezing out the bottom and making a terrible mess. The fondant was also not adhereing to the cake. Should I be using a different type of frosting, maybe a 10x based crusting type? Does the fondant stick to that? Any recommendations for a good tasting frosting that works well under fondant. Perhaps I was using too much and should have just used a very thin layer. I hope someone can help...I'm about to have a nervous breakdown!!!

Indydebi's buttercream in the recipe section, or ganache.

What kind are you using? And how thick are you putting it on?

Ganache especially for a topsy turvy it just gives it more strength and is easy to use.

I would want something that gets hard and stays hard while I work it with the fondant. I would use ganache, then an all-butter buttercream of SMBC if my work space was cool enough, or a nearly all-butter ABC. I never put fondant over a buttercream that has more than 1/4 of the fat in shortening--it just never gets hard enough when cold to work with the fondant the way I want to work with it. If I use SMBC, I have to work very quickly (something that comes with practice) because the heat of the room and my hands makes it too soft, too quickly. For a beginner with fondant I think that a well chilled ganache is the most fool-proof way to go.