I recently made a cake with gum paste grass coming out of it. This was my first time making items with gum paste. The gum paste grass was completely dry before I put them on the cake. I assembled the cake an hour before taking it to the party. By the time the party started, the grass was sagging--the part of the gum paste sticking into the cake was now soft and not supporting itself. I used a Wilton gum paste mix. What did I do wrong?

How many days did you let id dry?...
Edna

I don't know, because I had this same problem with a MMF/gumpaste mix bow. I made the loops more than a week in advance, so I know they were fully dry first.

I know this doesn't help, but it's a bump, anyway! I'd like to know too.

They dried at least a week. I'd turn them everyday so that they dried on each side...

What kind of buttercream you use..It should have been dried.. Did you leave them in an open area to dry? A close container would not help with the drying, neither a towel or anything on top.. Did you have a piece of foam underneath so the air would flow around it? Is it humid? where did you put them to dry?
Edna

Mine were on my dining room table on waxed paper, never thought of the foam, but that makes sense! It wasn't too humid, as it was October, and the warmest, most humid weather was over, but that could have been a factor. Would straight gumpaste instead of 50/50 be better?

My buttercream is a crusting buttercream similar to Wilton's, but it calls for 3/4c. white cake mix per recipe, and no meringue powder; however, the bow was poked through a layer of MMF which was on just the top of the cake.

I don't want to bash on Wilton, but that's happened to me too and a friend of mine told me to switch brands, I did and this didn't happen again. I make my own gumpaste. Also I noticed that in the winter my gumpaste or fondant decorations take a lil'longer to dry becuase of the heater always on...to the touch they are hard and dry but once anything with moister touches it starts to get soft. I have a fourth room that we have the computer in and I've shut the vent in there so its not warm or hot it's cool and I put my gumpaste/fondant projects in there to dry and I'm always doing roses, all different kinds of flowers and figurines (just because) and let the dry for about 3 weeks and when I need them I use the ones that have been drying longer so that I won't get any surprises with my gumpaste/fondant... I hope this helped....

I used the wilton buttercream recipe. I dried the items on wax paper. They were solid when I placed in the cake. The part outside the cake stayed hard but the part that was pushed into the cake became soggy so it wouldn't support the part sticking out. On the counter to dry. It was warm but not too humid. I took the cake from A/c to A/c.

Unless the grass was attached to a fondant covered cake, then it will likely absorb moisture and oil from the frosting. It just doesn't take much for gumpaste to go soft, especially 50/50. Full gumpaste might last a bit longer, but I wouldn't count on it.

I'm sorry this happened to your work.

Michele

The moisture in the cake is what softened the gp. BTDT

now I am confused about how I SHOULD have attached it. I am just learning as I go.

Since I am only guessing that you attached the grass closer to the bottom only then next time attach the full blade of grass to the cake. It will still soften, but if it's attached by the whole length, then it will be less likely to droop.

HTH

Michele

Yeah, what Michele said---dry gum paste or fondant stuck into nice moist cake and/or buttercream absorbs moisture and wilts.

Generally, to avoid this, you need to wire each piece of gum paste. When I've been too lazy to do this, I've painted a bit of melted chocolate on the back of the dry piece and then attached that with buttercream. It helps, but it's not fool proof.

HTH
Rae

Duplicate post, no responses to date:

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-614660-.html

HTH

Same thing happened to me. Thanks for posting this question.