Edible Images On Cakes-How Long Till It "incorporates&q
Decorating By SheilaF Updated 17 Feb 2006 , 4:04pm by SheilaF
I'm doing my first edible image and was wondering what the consistency of this thing is supposed to become. How long till it "incorportates" into the frosting? I'm supposed to do a few cakes next month and I'm doing a practice cake for my husband to take to work to see how easy these things are to work with, but it has the consistency of rubber right now (granted, it's only been on there for about 20 min, but I"m impatient! LOL). I'm doing it on buttercream icing. It is supposed to fully dissolve isn't it?
If it's printed on frosting sheets and you applied it before the icing crusted, it usually melds into the surface of the frosted cake in about 10 minutes. It can take longer if the icing is really stiff. Try covering the cake and leaving it at room temp for a while. It should soak in soon.
Also, keep a watch on it.....if the room is too warm or the cake isn't cooled off completely the frosting sheet could start to bubble. This has happened to me before..especially in summer time. I lightly rubbed a paper towel over the bubbles and that worked for me. Now I just make sure I don't put them on too soon.
..mine usually start to meld into the icing I I prefer thin consistency, sometimes I will even spritz the icing with a little water before putting on the image) in a few minutes or so. Once it is on the cake, box it up and let it sit or you can put it in the fridge, if you so choose!
Also, keep a watch on it.....if the room is too warm or the cake isn't cooled off completely the frosting sheet could start to bubble. This has happened to me before..especially in summer time. I lightly rubbed a paper towel over the bubbles and that worked for me. Now I just make sure I don't put them on too soon.
That happened to me once too in the summer when I had kept a cake covered airtight and the house was warm. Now I put them in cake boxes and if it's warm, in the fridge.
Well, the cake cooled overnight, so I know it's not to warm. The frosting is medium consistency, so that might be why it's taking awhile, but I just noticed some bubbles. The frosting was not as smooth as I'd have liked (it's an 11X15 inch cake and the transfer is 10X12). so I guess I need to smooth it with a paper towel? Ugh. I was hoping this was an easy way to decorate a cake! I meant to trim the cake to 11X13 (so there'd only be 1/2 inch around each side for a border) but totally forgot, so now I have to re-think how I'm going to do the border on this. I'm figuring since it's a photo of one of the game boxes from my husbands work, I'll put a frame of frosting around it.
Are the bubbles you see more like bumps from bumpy icing underneath? If so, next time you apply the edible image (before it soaks in), go over it lightly with a small roller. That smooths out any bumps/small gaps under the surface of the frosting sheet 
It looks like it's because the frosting was not totally smooth on top. I took my fondant smoother and pressed it on the top in segments and that made it adhere smoothly. So now I'll just wait till this evening and finish it up (I have to run out for a few hours, so hopefully, it won't be a mess when I get back). I just left specific instructions for my daughter and my husband NOT to use the oven (because I don't dare leave the cake out on a table with my 3 y/o and 4 y/o running wild, so I have it sitting in the top oven)
where i work we usually don't put them on til the customer comes to get the cake. for the most part we use the bettercream whipped frosting for most of the cakes ordered and it has a very bad habit of sucking colors into it. Also I would try to keep it out of the light as much as possible. That also makes it fade.
Well, for better or worse, it's done. I have to keep reminding myself, it's just a practice cake. I'm doing this one for the heck of it before I do the one that counts. My husband was pretty impressed with it, so I'm guessing its' not as bad as I see it. I just took some photos so I'll probably upload it into my photos in awhile.
Thank you Missy. I was kicking myself when I realized I had forgotten to trim the cake (that was after it was totall frosted of course) so that was the best thing I could think of to save myself from a lot of work! LOL. My husband was skeptical at first but I kept telling him to go away. I'm not done yet. He saw it before I put in the bead border on the inside of the frame and the lip around the outside of the frame and then painted it to make it look like darker wood). After I was done he was much more impressed with it.
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