I made a white almond sour cream cake for a friend of mine. It looked great at first. Then the icing started to bulge and fall. I thought I fixed it, but on the drive to deliver it, the top layer started slide off and the icing started to fall again. This has never happened before so I'm trying to figure out what happened. My thoughts are 1) the cake was too moist (I accidentally added double the oil) or 2) my icing wasn't the right consistency (too thin). Does anyone have any experience with this? Thanks.

Sorry this happened to you. When you say the icing was thin, do you mean the thickness on the cake or the consistency of the icing? If it is not firm when putting it on the cake then I would think that the icing was just too runny and needed more powdered sugar.

I thought maybe the consistency maybe was too thin. Although it seemed fine when I was putting it on. I was so happy at first because I did my best smoothing job ever on the icing.

I am using that same batch of icing for another cake tonight. If I just add some more powdered sugar will that make it better?

I think it should help though you may need to add a tiny bit of flavor to counteract the sweetness and possible some meringue powder would help.

Two questions:

1. Did you make crusting b/c?

2. Where do you live? Is it rainy or humid?

This happened to me last Thursday. Needed to have a cake done on Friday. COULD NOT get the icing to "behave". It was raining outside. Waited until the next day. Worked PERFECTLY!!

Also, had a wedding cake for Labor Day Weekend. HOT AND HUMID IN KY!! Used crusting b/c. The humidity caused the icing to "let go" at cake level and just slid off the cake! The only answer was to take off a section of icing and redo. Then, it looked fine!

HTH

Beth in KY

Sorry, I really don't know then. Was the cake oily to touch? If so, that was probably the problem. I'd say if your icing was too thin you would have noticed pretty much right away.

Beth in KY