Chocolate Cake Driving Me Batty!!!
Decorating By Love-A-Lot Updated 20 Jul 2006 , 2:53am by Love-A-Lot
Ok so I have done very few cakes...just for family and friends. I am by no means great...but I tend to try to be a perfectionist. So everything I make a chocolate cake (box mix) I get crumbs in my icing. Luckily enough the crumbs kind of went with the theme (battelfield and oreo filled cake). This one is killing me though. I am making my father a chocolate cake filled with cherries. I am icing it white and going to do the pin prick transfer thingy. Well I did my homework here on CC and found that I need to refrigerate the thing...crumb coat...and even tried the viva thing to make it look nice. Well refrigerated the thing over night covered in saran wrap, crumb coated a bit ago. Then let that dry and did the final coat and now my crumb coat is mixing with my top coat and actually coming off leaving bald spots on the cake. There are a few factors that might be affecting this but I was wondering if anyone else had any more tips.
Factor 1: My mother-in-law has issue and it is hot as all get out in the kitchen because she is cold.
Factor 2: Crumb coat might not have been thin enough. I probably could have done leaves with the "crumb coat" icing. How thin is thin enough?
Factor 3: I used the icer tip to do the final coat thinking...put a lot then smooth excess...didn't work too well.
Now while this is just for my father and no money lies in the balance I am still concerned for future cakes because this happens all the time. This is the first time I attempted refrigerating and crumbcoating. I also can probably cover the majority of the crumbs with border, words, and the design. But like I said I would like to know for sure for next time.
P.S. The viva towel thingy kind of worked...there were a few edges not completely dry and I have to go work on them now. All suggestions appreciated. Thanks
I have found trying to frost over the crumb coat in a warm kitchen does interfere. You may try putting the crumb coated in the freezer for a few minutes to make sure it is extremely cold when you put the outer frosting on it. Good luck!
Hopefully soon we can get our mortgage and buy the house and then kick her butt out--lol But until then I get to deal with heat. I was going to just deal with the few crumbs....I placed my pin pricked picture over the icing and started to smooth it to get the pricks to show up...went to pull off the paper and viola there goes half my icing. I came in the room soooo upset declaring my own horrid defeat and my sweet boyfriend just quietly left the room. I go into the kitchen to find him and he is there trying to re-ice the bald spots for me. AAAWWW how sweet!! And he hates cooking or anything kitchen related. I think this cake might just go to the wolves (meaning family) and I might run to Wal-Mart to buy some more cake mixes and what not. Not sure if I am up to it tonight, I got a tooth pulled last week and apparently stress aggravates it and the hole is now throbbing. I don't want to know what my cake will look like with me on pain meds. LOL
Girl, say to heck with and go to Wal-mart!!! 
It's late.
The crumb coat needs to be paper thin literally, you should be able to see the cake through it. If it is on there thick, it will not work (as you can see) All it does is lightly seal all the crumbs down.....it does not look like icing at all. The icing has to be thinned down for it to work too - thin icing, thin coat - then you can pop it in the frige to firm up before applying the final icing. (it will only take a few minutes to get firm in the fridge)
I tried the icer tip yesterday for the first time, and did not like it at all. I like using the spatula and viva method MUCH better. (and easier)
I also have better luck with the piping gel transfer over the pin-prick one.
Hope some of this info helps you!
piping gel transfer???
I have heard of the FBCT and the pin prick.
The pin prick took me forever...halfway through I realized I could use a screw instead of a needle (didn't have a push pin).
How do you do the piping gel?...because now my pattern is covered in icing and I have to print another one.
Luckily Wal-Mart is like 5 minutes away...just gotta get cleaned up from all the icing. LOL
I would hate to go in there looking like a crazed woman. 
I always have the best luck if I stick the cake in the frig after the crumb coat. That way it is hard and doesn't come off when I frost it. I just make sure I don't repeatedly go over the same area with the spatula or I inevitably start pulling stuff up. Good Luck! Tell the mother in law to put on a sweater!
I did place it in the fridge...even had to clear a whole shelf to do it...guess I didn't do it long enough or the heat just negated it all together. Well I am off to Wally World to buy more supplies. I posted a pic of the other cake that this one will (in theory) look like in my photos. It is the fishy one. I also entered it into the Father's Day contest. I promised her I would, and since I didn't do it with our Mother's Day cakes I figured I would do it this time. Her father's cake came out great. It was carrot cake with store bought cream cheese icing. We had no problems with it...even crusted a bit...I was shocked.
In stead of doing the cake over why not just scrape off the icing and start again much easier than baking again it never hearts to put your icing on thick when you smoothen you have lots to work with and the crumbs won,t show. I helps to freeze your cakes and ice them frozen until you get the hang of it. Go to a hardware store that sells paint and pick up a 9" paint trimmer and use it to smoothen your cakes its one of those metal things that you use so you don't get paint on the carpet just the floor boards. If I knew how to attach a pic I would but haven't figured out how to size it yet. Hope this helps.
I agree - just scrape the icing off and re-do it!
Piping Gel method - take the picture you want to do - (if it has any writing on it you need to turn it over to do this or the writing will come out backwards!) Tape a piece of wax paper on top of the picture. Put some piping gel into a bag with a #1 or #2 tip and trace the picture with the piping gel. When you have it all traced, turn it over and place it (gel side down) on top of your iced cake and gently rub the transfer - it will put a thin gel transfer of your picture on the cake, then you just use your icing to fill in the colors you want. You can do that with either a star tip or a round one, however you want to do it. It is just like coloring the picture with icing on the cake!
I think I might try the piping gel thingy next...I left to bring a friend home and decided I would just salvage what I could. The only good thing is the main area where the icing came off is where the picture will go so the crumbs will be covered. I dunno this cake aggravated me and I am supposed to make two the exact same...one for my father and one for my step father. LOL Hopefully this one will teach me for the next one. Thanks for the suggestions. Soon enough my mother in law will be going to bed and I can crank the air up to cool things off.
AY AY AY Here I thought that at least during one trip to Micheals I had picked up some piping gel, but after a very thorough search through my cake decorating stuff I can't find any. Ok so I might try finishing this tomorrow. Will let yall know if I could salvage the cake or not. Does Wal-mart carry piping gel? Guess I will be calling them because now I just want to get it done and over with --LOL
Quad crew thank you for yoru information on crtumb coating a cake...All this time i htink mine have been too thick. Like the original poster, i only have that problem with choclate cakes but now that i think about what you said i have to say "Duh, a thinner caot would set faster and thus be easier to frost over?" great point
Ok so I somewhat salvaged it. Then I started working on my second identical cake. Thinner crumbcoat....maybe too thin because it didn't harden very much even after in the fridge for 30mins....placed my final coat on with minimal crumbs on the top...side is horrible. Problem was I kept getting my Viva towel stuck in the icing. I would place it back in the fridge and let sit and then try again until it was somewhat smooth. I am not quite sure what happened with the borders--lol I was attempting reverse shell and one ended up kind of like a rope and the other was just pitiful. LOL I guess I need more practice
It's a coloring page I found online. To me it seemed taunting like. LOL I am actually satisfied with the experience I have gained with making these three cakes. I think the next thing I might try is homemade icing. That might help when it comes to frosting the cakes. I dunno though. Thanks for all the suggestions. I appreciate them very much.
The next time you might want to consider skipping the crumb coat (I hate doing crumb coating), especially for tender cakes like white and chocolate cakes and instead do the piping method. I never have a problem and it puts the icing on so evenly, 1/4 of inch thick, sides and top.
I just use a #18 tip and pipe up the sides, going over the top slightly, then finishing with the top piping in giant circles until you reach the center, then smooth with spatulas, easy and it does not pick up any crumbs, seals them in.
I'm wondering if you move the spatula back and forth as you frost? I was doing that and my instructor told me that's why I had crumb issues. 
I started being very careful to always move the spatula the same direction, and it's cut down the crumb problem alot.
When I took my origional cake clasess waaayyyyyy back when, I was told to use a real super thin icing to crumbcoat.... like the petite four icing. Place the cakeboad on a rack and just pour the icing over it... sugar coat, that's what they called it, and ice when completely dry. Sounds simple, huh? Messy though.
Rodney
I have the cake icer thing, but don't use it too often because it uses too much icing. I will try another tip next time.
Vanaya
Thanks for the comment. My friend will be moving in soon and we will probably be decorating more, so more practice. YAY
Debsue
Yeah that does sound easy and messy all in the same sentence. LOL I make a big enough mess now without adding liquid icing to the equation. LOL
7yyrt
I dunno. I never thought about the motion too much. I think I just put a couple of big blobs and then spread them out to the edges. I guess that would be back and forth. HMMMM. thanks for the advice
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%