I had two tiered cakes to deliver today. As I'm working on the first one, the top tier is giving me fits. The icing keeps sliding off and I am getting crumbs like crazy. I completely scrapped off the icing and re-iced it THREE times! I was finally satisfied (not happy, but satisfied) and went to deliver. It was going to an area I have delivered to several times and no problems. I get there just before the party, open the back of my car and scream! The icing has all slid down the side of the cake top and bottom tiers. I could see the cake through the huge cracks in the icing. It was terrible!!! I kinda of fixed it. It wasn't pretty, but ok enough at that point. I took $30 of the price of the cake and felt so terrible about the whole thing.

I come home and start the next one. Bottom tier seems ok. I start the top one and the same thing happens!!!! I scrape, re-ice, scrape re-ice. (This is a whole new batch of icing.) I change my design up a little and decide to put a grass skirt around it to cover up the damage. By the time I get the last piece of the grass skirt on, I realized all of the icing slid off on the other side and pulled all the mmf off with it. Then I notice the bottom tier has time weird bulge and I can tell it's about to crack and all of the icing fall off of it too. No matter what I did, the icing just slid off! And I hadn't even moved it, yet. I finally just had to call her an hour and a half before the party and tell her there was no way it was going to make it there.

I have been making cakes for 10 years and have NEVER had this happen. It is cold outside, not hot. I made my icing exactly like I always do. I am using Kroger brand shortening as I have since the Crisco switch and Walmart brand powdered sugar like I always do. The icing seems slimy (the way Crisco was after the switch). The top layer of the cake is also sliding off of the bottom layer of the cake. What is going on?????? Please tell me Kroger did not change theirs. I have checked my label and it still shows transfat.

In 10 years I have only had to cancel on someone once and that was because I had to go to the hospital and ended up having emergency surgery. And to top it off, this was for the lady who offered to be my investor to open my own bakery! And the cherry on top is all 5 of my orders this week have been disasters! (colors bled, cupcakes all fell over in delivery, etc.)

I ca't give you any advice, I just want to say I feel so bad for you and I hope things get better.

I am sorry you had a bad cake week! Maybe its the weather change? I am in NC and the weather has been from the 40's at night to the almost 80's during the day!

I know nothing about Kroger shortening, but clearly that's the common link in the problems with sliding, color, etc.

I strongly suggest that you invest in some hi-ratio shortening. I have no problems whatsoever with my Sweetex based buttercream. I've had it tolerate a 90 degree day..........

HTH
Rae

Sorry this happen to you.

The only time I had frosting slide off the cake like that, someone on here told me to add meringue powder. That made all the difference.

I had stopped using it because I didn't know that it was doing anything for me, but apparently it was! I have used it ever since, and never had the problem again.

Wow! I'm so sorry. I'd be an absolute wreck.

I agree with the suggestion to try the high ratio shortening. It's a dream. It's more expensive but you use less. It just holds up better. I think it's worth it.

Awww...wow I've never really had icing slide off before (except some meringue kind one time, that was rough) but I have noticed that with cakes "when it rains, it pours"!!!! Seems like once I have trouble with one cake, I have trouble with them all.

So sorry...well next week is another week....

I would suspect that shortening and also suggest hi ratio. always consistent.

so sorry you went thru all of that!

That would be a nightmare........sorry for your troubles..........hope it gets better soon

you could have gotten a bad batch of shortening. Shortening can go bad after a while, or if it has been exposed to heat. Who knows what happened to it before it wound up on the store shelf. Buy a brand new can (maybe try a different store brand like Stop and Shop or even Wal mart) and see how that works.

BellsnBows I feel your pain. I'm in St. Louis and this Thurs/Fri was very rainy and humid. We had the house open to air it out and I had bc sliding off my cake as well. 4 tiers scraped and iced 3 times and the final batch was with Indydeb's (sp?) bc and it still took hours to crust. I'm fairly new to decorating but I am blaming it on the humidity. I also have sweetex and so I may add meringue powder from now on to avoid that happening again.

BellsnBows,
Sorry to hear about your icing troubles...good thing tomorrow is a new day ! I also use Kroger shortening( when I run out of Hi Ratio )....they now have 2 kinds on the shelf ( at least here at my local store) one with trans fat and one without...and the containers look very similar...( I bought the wrong one last time by accident). Maybe that is the answer to your 'sliding icing' ?

so weird I just posted something similar happening to me last night. It took me four hours to make frosting that wasn't slimy and stretchy in consistancy. I used the same recipe I always used but it was humid. I finally switched to regular buttercream as opposed to smbc and it still did the same thing. Very frustrating.

I think the only time I ever had weird icing is when I added meringue powder to it as well. It separated when I coloured the icing and ever since I made the connection between meringue powder and bad icing I haven't had problems But yes - if you had a bad week last week you'll have a great week this week. Don't worry - everyone has crumby cake days - it will pass - hang in there

Thanks so much for all of your responses! They definitely made me feel better! I am looking into all of you suggestions. I have been avoiding the high ratio switch since I found the Kroger brand that worked as well as the old Crisco, but fear it may be time to take the plunge! I have double, make that triple, checked my shortening and they all say 2% transfat. But I have this feeling that they just couldn't be! I felt like I was making slime. Maybe could have been the weather, but this weekend was actually the first time we've had good weather in a long while! I need to make some more icing and see what I can figure out, but I went to the doc today and have bronchitis so I haven't felt like doing much of anything!

Humid weather really makes doing any kind of sugar work frustrating. Invest in a dehumidifier and plug it up in your kitchen on humid days. Will help a LOT!

Hey, listen, I've just posted about what happened to me this weekend. I've had a cake slip on me before when my stupid customer put a stacked 3 tier cake on the front seat of her car! I told her not to.

After all, we are only human aren't we. Everyone has bad weeks. I'm afraid that I can't help you on the technical side as I live in the UK and our weather is much different and the techniques we use are different too. However, chin up and keep going....you're obviously a good cake maker.

You should def. check the shortening that you are using. For the past year I had used the generic brand of Crisco with no problems. About a month ago my colors wouldnt mix right and it looked like the ps wasnt mixing right. I broke down and bought some Crisco and the problem went away. They have a HUGE can of it at WalMart for around $7. The bakery I go to sells the Hi Ratio shortening but as of today I havent had to buy it.

The only time I had something like this happen was when I had to make individual 4.5" cakes for a decorating party. Instead of waiting for them all to cook in 5" pans, I made sheet cakes and cut out the cake layers with a large round cutter. Crumb coating was a mess, since the edges of my cake were all crumb edges. The final coat of icing went on fine, but after delivery, I had this cracking and sliding down. Were your edges regular?

I had the same thing happen to me a couple of months ago. I was using the store brand shortening just fine (never had a problem with sliding icing) and then the next batch of icing I made with the store brand (freshly opened can, new label and apparently, different shortening) slid down my cake just as the OP described. I decided at that point to make the switch to Hi-Ratio shortening. No problems since then and the texture/feel of my icing is much better with the Hi-Ratio shortening.

Hi-Ratio is the way to go. You might be able to find it if you have a restaurant supply store near you-we have monarch-comes in a big container but it sounds like you're making a lot of icing so you will go through it pretty soon anyway. I loath bad cake days
Tomorrow is a new day

Hmmm... I am afraid the only answer to your problems is tequila. Yep. Add directly to your mouth. The amount may vary, based on tolerance, your weight, etc. but in general... that'll fix it.

You know, I always make those jokes, but I drink less than most nuns I know. Ok, every great once in a while I will have a single small drink, but only if i'm getting together with some good people.