Hello Ladies!

I hope someone can help me with this! I have had this happen three times in the last month on sheet cakes-the first two times the cake was fine when it left the house, but when I delivered it there was a big bulge on the front of the cake-not from filling, but the about 2-3" on the whole side of the cake. It was almost like the icing had pulled away. I figured that it was some type of damage from driving-fast stop, turn, etc.

Today, it happened again, before I left the house, in the middle of decorating. I wll attach a photo below. I did everything as per usual on these cakes-crumb coat first, used icer tip to ice, smoothed with roller/paper towel combo. Today's cake I took out of the fridge (put on basic icing last night, put in fridge til this am) and airbrushed. After airbrushing the bulge occurred. I made a couple small holes down where the border would go later thinking maybe somehow I had air holes under the icing which caused the icing to pull away, then smoothed the icing back on the cake with a paper towel and a fondant smoother. A couple minutes later it bulged again (same spot). Fixed it again and it seemed to hold.

Help! Any ideas what is causing this? I use the Wilton 1/2 butter 1/2 shortening buttercream.

Julie

I will leave your question to someone with more experience than I, but I wanted to say that I love your colors and your lines are perfect.

Are the two wide "stripes" of icing, from using the icer tip? That's one reason why I quit using the icer tip, because my icing would pull away because it wasn't sealed to the cake.

i get the same thing sometimes. i'm not quite sure what it is. the only thing i came up with was that it's the cake settling and causing the frosting to bulge out.

here's a bump so maybe someone else can help us??

This looks like an air bubble between the surface of the cake and the icing. It can happen with fondant as well as buttercream but seems to be more common in buttercream. Lots of theories as to why it happens but most think it is caused when the cake is too moist. If your cake has been frozen wrapped in plastic wrap and you thawed it with the wrap on it will stay very moist on the sides. Or if it has been refrigerated with plastic wrap covering, It needs to air dry before you ice it, even with crumb icing.

This used to be a problem for me too!
You have to make sure the icer tip is in good contact with the cake at all times- even scraping the crumb coat a little. Really push that icing into the cake or it will pull away. The icer tip is meant to help apply an even layer of icing, but not meant to be the finishing touch. After applying the icing with the icer tip, you still have to smooth it over with a spatula. That will eliminate the separation between the rows, and will again help the icing to adhere to the sides of the cake. I also don't let the crumb coat completely crust over before adding the finish layer of icing. HTH!

Thanks for your advice ladies. I will try to apply the icing right away after the crumb coat (lately I've been putting it in the fridge after the crumb coat, which I didn't use to do) and I will air dry first.

Sun33082, the lower stripe in the picture is actually the cake board (the color of the icing and the board match on this cake).

Julie

Your lines are so perfectly straight! And your colors are great!
I had a lot of frustration with the icer tip at first and gave up on it until someone here gave me similar advice. Now I use it most of the time. It really does save time going over and over the cake to try to level it out. Don't give up on it!
GL

Hope this isn't a dump question, but how did you get your lines so straight? I have trouble with that.

Hah, make that "dumb" question. And, how did you get the spacing so even between the lines?

If this is a stacked cake, how did you stack? Bottoms up, tops up, etc?