Hi folks.

I'm doing my cousin's two tier wedding cake (as my gift to her) and 2 dozen cupcakes. The bottom tier will be covered in a raspberry crusting buttercream and the second tier in a cream cheese frosting. I'm making a gumpaste/fondant mix bride and groom topper for the second tier and gumpaste roses. Cupcakes will have cream cheese frosting piped on and decorated with a fondant/gumpaste heart.

However, I did a crusting cream cheese frosting covered cake as practice and it barely crusted at all! I also did some test cupcakes with the same frosting and decorated with fondant hearts. The next day, I opened the box and the hearts had completely melted.

So.. Two things. 

1. Why didn't my cream cheese frosting crust? Would the UK version of full fat Philadelphia have an effect? I used Kathy Finholt's recipe and it was fairly stiff before spreading:

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening (I used Trex as that's what I can get in the UK)

1 pound cream cheese, softened (I used UK full fat Philadelphia)

1 tablespoon clear vanilla extract

3 1/2 pounds sifted confectioner’s sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2. Are the gumpaste flowers likely to melt into the frosting? I'll be setting up the cake at the venue the night before and putting the flowers on then. Don't want to turn up at the wedding and see pink puddles on the cake!

Thanks in advance!

I once made a cake with cream cheese frosting (which were waves) and even built up a huge wave with a gum paste wave inside for stability.  Then I inserted a surf board half way into the cake and all the gum paste pieces (that I had dried in advanced  (wave and surfboard ) were absolutely fine.