I made a basket weave Easter cake on Saturday night, put it in a cake box and left it on the table. Sunday when we cut it, pieces of the basket weave fell off onto the plates exposing the crumb coat underneath.

This also happened to me one other time when I did a decorative icing technique over a crumb coat. Once it dried, the decorative part fell off when cut, exposing the crumb coat underneath.

It only happens to the part that's cut or when you take your fork to cut off a piece to eat, the icing pops off. The basketweave pattern stayed on the rest of the cake.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Just a thought but could your buttercream be a little too dry? Next time try putting a little more liquid whether you use water or milk in your recipe, I bet it will stick better. Best of luck!

I agree with Samsgranny. Also, and I may not explain this right, but when you are adding the basket weave, I have found that it helps if you push (or apply pressure) so that you are pushing the icing into your crumb coat. Hope that makes sense.

Do you use a crusting buttercream???? Maybe when you do your crumb coat, you could add a little corn syrup to it so it will stay moist and the weave will stick to it, rather than just lay on top of it. HTH

Yes, I use a crusting buttercream. It is well crusted, too, by the time I add the decorative icing on top of it.

Do we want the crumb coat not to crust? Is that the purpose of the corn syrup?

Should the basketweave tip actually be pressed into the side of the cake as I pipe it? How will the line stay straight, though?

I just use my regular buttercream when doing basketweave. Never used crusting buttercream for this, but I'd think this might be too dry to work with, not to mention too stiff. I check the consisitancy with my bw tip to make sure it's just right. I always crumb coat with with the same buttercream. When I do the weave I just make sure the line goes against the side of the cake, no added presure really. I've never had anything fall off.