I did my own birthday cake for a party.... yes sad isn't it?
Anyways I covered the banana cake with the Richn Smooth and then decided that I wanted to do a basketweave effect on the sides and the Richn' smooth was not co-operating when I tried to colour it, so I used buttercream.
All was well, or so it seemed till we went for the drive up to the venue. When we got there I found that the buttercream sides had slid down leaving the Richn Smooth cream intact and not damaged at all. Can anyone tell me what went wrong?
I had left the buttercream to set for about 12 hours so I thought it was strong enough to handle the road trip. I seem to have all sorts of trouble with travelling with cakes. Hmmm! Any advice would be appreciated.
Your Rich N Smooth seems to be the equivalent of our Rich's Bettercreme:
http://www.merryday.com.au/icing/icing.htm
If your b/c slid off the RNS, it was because they're incompatible...
Rich's Bettercreme develops a skin, so it can be top decorated with b/c accents but I've never seen this type of cake with b/c accents on the sides. (And it's probably for the reason you mentioned - it won't adhere.)
HTH
JanH - as long as you do the basketweave on buttercream (buttercream on buttercream) it shouldn't be a problem, correct? I have a very large picnic basket cake to make and will have to transport it about 1 hour away. I'm very nervous about what will happen if the road is bumpy!
JanH - as long as you do the basketweave on buttercream (buttercream on buttercream) it shouldn't be a problem, correct? I have a very large picnic basket cake to make and will have to transport it about 1 hour away. I'm very nervous about what will happen if the road is bumpy!
A lot of my square cakes are/were basketweave (did a count once .... 15 of 19 consecutive cakes were square and over half of those 15 were basketweave.
Sounds like your icing is too thick, or too dry. It should be moist (wet) enough to adhere to the base icing on the cake.
JanH - as long as you do the basketweave on buttercream (buttercream on buttercream) it shouldn't be a problem, correct? I have a very large picnic basket cake to make and will have to transport it about 1 hour away. I'm very nervous about what will happen if the road is bumpy!
Buttercream will adhere to buttercream.
However, Bettercreme doesn't crust, it actually forms a "skin."
I've read where some members do cover Bettercreme frosted cakes totally in fondant, but I've never read/seen any Bettercreme frosted cakes with either b/c or fondant accents on the sides of the cakes...
HTH
JMO- regular BC is probably too heavy to do a basketweave over a whipped icing like that. Not that it absolutely WILL NOT work, but I think you run a pretty fair chance of exactly what happened. BC on BC is no problem at all, and RNS on RNS should be just fine as well. It is not 'suggested' to use BC or fondant over Bettercreme or RNS, but, as with everything else, there are people who do it and have NO problem with it. What do they do differently?? NO IDEA. Will it work for everyone? No. Can you pre-determine when it will fail? Nope, that's why if the cake 'really' matters, I'd probably not risk it.
Thanks again JanH for steering me over here. I doubt I was much help since we already got some sound advice, but since when has THAT shut me up? Hehehehe.
Thanks folks, problem answered I shall not use the Rich 'n Smooth. Thank goodness I did this for my own cake not someone else's. Haaa Haa!
Sound advice by all. Love this site, and you are all so marvelous.
BTW, that is a really pretty cake, and making your own bday cake it NOT pathetic!! I do it every year. What IS pathetic is making your own cake and not bothering to do a very nice job, which I have been guilty of some years! Hahahah!
I had that happen to my Wilton course cake once. Figure out it was because I was driving home with it on the floor of the car in front of the passenger seat...with the floor heating on.
But as for your problem, the butter cream shouldn't be too stiff, and it does seem that it wasn't compatible with the Bettercreme.
Hi Colliegirl, I am in Brisbane and wondering where you were able to buy the Rich n Smooth from? I have heard that it is a great alternative to using buttercream in our humid weather but haven't found a supplier.
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