AI was working on Sharon Wee's castle cake from her craftsy class. I carved the top tier from chocolate mud cake, covered it in ganache and then froze it for a few days. Then I brought it room temp and covered it and it looked perfect. The room temp was about 22c and it was left out overnight. About 6 hrs later the back of the cake sort of collapsed, and my cupcake was a slumped mess. I am attaching two photos, but I really want to understand why this happened and how I can prevent this in the future. It was so cute and I would love to make it again![ATTACHMENT=1455][IMG ALT=""]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3169581/width/350/height/700[/IMG] [IMG ALT=""]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3169582/width/350/height/700[/IMG] [IMG ALT=""]http://cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3169583/width/350/height/700[/IMG] [/ATTACHMENT]

Thanks!

Please please someone help!  I really want some advice on this one!

I have zero experience working with mudcake, but I know with my own cakes there would have to be a board and dowels in the giant cupcake.
It looks to me like the cakes is either settling or collapsing into itself, it's hard to see though, since I am using my phone.

AThanks scrumdiddlycakes- I think you are right that dowels could have helped. I thought the top part was too heavy for the bottom, and it was collapsing. But in Sharon's video she doesn't use support and also doesn't fridge it after fondant. I just don't get it. And I followed the video to the letter!

What kind of chocolate did you make your Ganache out of? At 22c the Ganache should set firm.  The chocolate you use needs to have 45-50% cocoa butter, the cocoa butter makes the Ganache set.  If you used a compound chocolate it could be the Ganache didn't have the structure it needs to set and therefore softened and started to slide down underneath the weight of the fondant.

Did you do an Internet "search" ?

Question and Response to your problem is on her Blog:

http://weelovebaking.blogspot.com.au/2012_08_01_archive.html

Thanks for that link. it is interesting.  But my cake didn't sink it the middle after baking.  it was fine and the mud cake was sturdy and great to work with. i ganached it and covered it with fondant and only after it was completed did the cake start to droop! i think it may have been more of a structural cake problem.

How big was the cupcake?  It could have been from the weight if it was larger.

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions!  The base was about 4 inches and the top portion was about 3 inches.  Sharon Wee replied to my query privately, so I thought i would post it as I think she was right:

I wanted to add that I googled melting point of butter vs chocolate.  Indeed, butter softens at a slightly lower temperature and therefor also doesn't provide as much support.

well, we learn a little something from every new challenge, right?

I also had a large cupcake collapse before.  I made a large cupcake cake for my daughters Pinkalisious party completely done with buttercream and with in 5 hours of getting it perfect it collapsed.  Thank goodness I also made a bunch of cupcake

AWhat a shame! Well, hopefully this thread has put out a number of good ideas to prevent others from going through the same frustrations that we did!