I made a cake for my FIL surprise 50th b-day party this last Saturday & the icing fell right off the sides of the cake!!!!!!! It was a 12" - 10" - 8" square stacked cake, all buttercream with fondant cutouts. I started on the cake last weekend, making what I could in advance, then spent my ENTIRE day Saturday icing & completing the cakes.

We transported the cakes separately from my house to the party location (only 7 miles away) & we even borrowed a friends SUV to drive the cakes in since we only have a truck & a Camaro (neither is very cake friendly) By the time we got to the location the BC on the sides of the bottom tier had slid down & fell off the cake completely! I was so friggin pissed! All that hard work just so the damn icing could fall off!? Argh!

You can kinda see in the pic attached that the icing on the red cake, very center, top, looks like it is already starting to slide down, but neither DH nor I noticed that before we left home. Dont know if there would have been anything I could have done about it though at that point anyway.

My SIL helped me with the final assembly & set up of the cake & I did some pretty impressive camouflaging to hide the most visible damage. I still got so many compliments & rave reviews on the cake from everyone at the party. (HA!) I had to bite my tongue & just grin at people when they talked to me about it. They had no idea how bad it really looked & I knew how awesome it was supposed to look but didnt! AHHHHH!

Sigh. Oh, well. I don't have pics yet of the cake stacked (had to borrow my MIL camera at the party) but when I get pics from her I will post them.

We are our own worst critics! Enjoy the compliments they gave you and consider a 'good save'! What they don't know.....well that is your secret!

Did you brush the outside of your cakes with a simple syrup or something like it? I have occasionally had this happen as well since the outside of my cake is sometimes too moist for it to adhere to.

Also if I don't refrigerate it solid it can tend to droop like an old lady's pantyhose!

Sorry this happened, I feel your pain on this one! At least it wasn't for someone's wedding!

I agree! What they dont know. I did a cake this Saturday. It was one of my better ones so far. Looked awesome! DH pulled into the parking lot and my cake slid! I had to spend another 10 minutes pushing it back into place and redoing the bottom flowers. It's the one in my gallery-pink and green two tiered cake.

I still wonder what would have made it come off i.e. moisture, to thick of BC????

I had that happen one time, also. I never did figure out why it happened. It was only for my family, so it didn't matter too much, but I just watched as the buttercream slowly slid right on down to the base of the cake. Weird. Chalk it up to a bad cake day, and good experience for when the cake really matters and you have to repair it!!!

I have heard of this happening with buttercream using the trans-fat free Crisco....is that a possibility??

I believe it may be a matter of humidity. Moisture levels inside the cake, between the icing and the cake, moisture levels in the environment. Can all be very tricky!

Hey I noticed that you are in Gladstone, MO; I am in Olathe, KS, and the same thing happened to me this summer. Remember the beginning of Aug. when it was 105 degrees and the humidity was just as high?

Mine started before I even started decorating, while the frosting was still crusting. I got lots of advice from here, and ended up scraping it all off and starting over with meringue powder added to the frosting. It worked, but was still a little saggy (it is the wedding cake with roses in my gallery).

I really think it was more the trans fat free Crisco, but the heat and humidity made it a perfect storm.

So glad to know it's not just me. I've never had this problem b4. I did have one "slide off" the cake board just like Alvarezmom. It's the 2 tier square bridal shower one in my photos & that one I did deliver assembled. Maybe I'll just quit stacking square cakes?! I use Indydebi's BC recipe & have always used the 0 trans fat Crisco, cause by the time I started doing cakes, that's the only thing Crisco offered & I didn't know the difference. (shrug) This has never happened to me before though, so I'll just have to add it to my list of firsts (& hopefully lasts)

Thank you everyone for sharing your stories, makes me feel better.

I use a recipe very similar to Sugarshacks (I use real heavy cream rather than creamer), but I switched to hi-ratio shortening as soon as I saw the problems people were having with the 0Trans fat crud.

I highly recommend using the hi-ratio. You may have to hunt it down
online (globalsugarart.com is having a $7 discount/50lb. cube right now, so it's $105/50 lbs.--not too bad for peace of mind). Stored in a cool, dry environment out of direct sunlight, it lasts a long, long time. I re-package mine in 1 lb. containers.

The hi-ratio has a much higher melting point and makes for a smooth, but sturdy icing.

Rae