Preventing Melted Buttercream During Delivery?
Decorating By CdnTX066 Updated 25 Jul 2009 , 7:07pm by CdnTX066
I have a cake booked for next weekend, luckily it is a sheet cake and not a tiered cake. However, it Texas it is hovering around 100f daily. What can I do from the time I frost, to delivery, to keep my cake from melting into a puddle??
Do I refrigerate the cake once it is decorated? Can I transport in a cooler? What about cake sweating?
Please let me know the best way to proceed!
BTW... this is my first Paid CAKE and there will be a lot of ppl there and I would like to make a great impression!
Catherine
I also live in the hot texas, I keep the cakes in the fridge till ready to deliver if possible. Start vehicle 5 minutes early and put ac on high. I also use a all shortening bc.
My first thought - man, I hope you have air conditioning 
My second thought is - if you refrigerate a cake - there is always the time frame where it sweats after taking it out of the fridge - even going from a fridge into an air conditioned house or car. Sweating can be trouble if there are dark colored icing decorations on your cake. If it were me (and I could keep a room air conditioned to around the 72 degree mark) I would keep the cake in that room for the holding period until delivery and then like suggested above - start the car and turn the air on high for delivery. I hope wherever it's final destination is - that it's going INTO an air-conditioned facility. Just my thoughts here.... 
Are there really icings out there that are so fragile you have to surround them with gallon size blocks of ice, just to get them home from the bakery, or they 'melt into a puddle'? 
Please educate me on those types. I'm beginning to experiment with other/add'l recipes on things and I'd like to avoid this kind, so let me know what to look for in a recipe. TIA.
Are there really icings out there that are so fragile you have to surround them with gallon size blocks of ice, just to get them home from the bakery, or they 'melt into a puddle'?
Please educate me on those types. I'm beginning to experiment with other/add'l recipes on things and I'd like to avoid this kind, so let me know what to look for in a recipe. TIA.
Any recipe with butter in it softens drastically on the way from my apartment to the car. I used Wilton's recipe for a long time and my cakes looked like piles of poo from about April through September. Sometimes it wasn't even possible to keep the house cool enough to get the cake done. That's why I was so excited when I tried MMF and it worked, because most of the family's birthdays fell during those months.
I use your buttercream recipe now and it's much much better. I did an experiment about a month ago to see how well it would hang in the heat here. It wasn't quite as hot then as it is now. I used your recipe under fondant and then drove the cake across town in my poor old car with no AC at 4:30 pm. By the time I reached my mom's house at 5, the cake had a big bulge at the bottom of one side. I cut into it and the buttercream had totally fallen off of the side of the cake. It was the side nearest the window, although the cake was in a box and not in direct sunlight. I'd made one two weeks before and it held up during the trip to my mother's house (we do all the family birthdays there because my dad doesn't like to go places 
).
I think it's the combination of heat and humidity here that are so hard on buttercream.
wow, I figured butter would come into play, so I'm cautious about recipes with that, although I'd like to try one just for the butttery taste. (Hershey's Icing recipe on the side of the cocoa can uses butter and I really like that one.)
Gosh, I feel for you guys having to battle conditions like that to deliver a cake.
I use your buttercream recipe now and it's much much better.......
I think it's the combination of heat and humidity here that are so hard on buttercream.
Texas Rose, where do I find the buttercream recipe that you are using that can hold up to a little more heat?
Catherine
Hi and Welcome to CC, CdnTX066. 
Decoding CC acronyms:
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-2926-.html
CdnTX066, Texas_Rose uses indydebi's b/c recipe...
Everything you need to know to make, decorate and assemble tiered/stacked/layer cakes:
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-605188-.html
Above superthread has popular CC recipes for American buttercreams (including indydebi's) as well as fondant and doctored cake mixes (WASC and other flavors) - and so much more.
HTH
I use your buttercream recipe now and it's much much better.......
I think it's the combination of heat and humidity here that are so hard on buttercream.
Texas Rose, where do I find the buttercream recipe that you are using that can hold up to a little more heat?
Catherine
Here's the link to Indydebi's buttercream: http://cakecentral.com/cake_recipe-6992-Indydebis-Crisco-Based-Buttercream-Icing.html
It's not greasy like you'd think an all-crisco buttercream would be. And it tastes wonderful.
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