I am on the verge of a meltdown.... cake totally fell apart and it's for a gradutation celebration in the morning at church. I glued it all back together with BC, but it's taking longer to crust so I can finish frosting it.

Any tricks to speed this up?

Keep it out of the refrigerator. Did you ice a cold or frozen cake? The only time I've had issues with buttercream not crusting is when I did one or the other.

What recipe did you use? I use Indydebi's recipe and it crust in less than 10 minutes. What fat/sugar ratio did you use?

Nope, cake was room temp...it was in the pan too long, and that's part of the reason it demolished itself!

I used the Wilton BC recipe....

2 cups fat (1/2 butter 1/2 crisco) to 2lbs. p. sugar

I use Indydebi's recipe also it crusts very fast. Is it trying to crust at all? How long has it been? How humid is it in your area? Sometimes when it is very humid here I put it in the fridge and it helps to set it up much quicker.

The only times I ever had icing problems was when I put my cakes in the 'frig (only twice .... never again).

whenever I see problems with icing, it's usually a 1:1 fat/sugar ratio. My opinion is reduce the fat.

cruIsting does happen fairly quickly in my experience... I have used the wilton recipe and ust recentjly I triedindydebi's for the first time and it crusted fairly fast as well.... matbe a fan? I fnd that I need to turn off my ceiling fan whenI coat the cakes bcause it well start cirusting bfore I even finish... air is realy what makes the crusting process so say add sIme air... oa fan and it should work fine... oh wait u ned it the ecAKE FOR NOW? SORRY.. HOPE ALL.TURNED OUT WELL FOR YU

I like a little butter in my icing. Trail and error has taught me to use a 3 to 1 ratio of crisco to butter.

I usually stick mine in the fridge. I use Edna's receipe, but sometimes I put too much liquid in it. HTH

i do this for all of my cakes now.

buy a good dehumidifier...put it in the smallest room in your house. turn it on high. turn on the light. put your cake in that room. shut the door.

it will crust in less than 30 minutes, every time!!! and i fridge all of my cakes in b/t crumb and final coat for 15 minutes (don't hate me mamawrobin and indydebi ) i never fridge my cakes to get them to crust...yes it will harden, but not crust.

and to those who think the dehumidifier might dry out the cake...it doesn't. the icing is totally surrounding the cake so no worries there! essentially i try to create the driest environment possible. and crusting really depends on the fat to sugar ratio...not the dry to liquids ratio...so maybe up your sugar next time!

good luck!

Well heck. That is really odd. But I have no problems with the fridge. Maybe I have a magic fridge? LOL. But I just did it Friday night with my cakes I was making and no problems at all. I guess I am the lucky one here.