I am making a buttercream cake and just putting a layer of fondant on the top, not down the sides. If I put the crumb coat on, refrigerate for an hour, and then put the final buttercream coat on - Do I need to wait a while before putting the fondant layer on the top of the cake?

Thanks - I am making this cake tomorrow, so any advice would be great!

No. You can crumbcoat, put buttercream on and fondant all within the same time frame. Good luck!

I always put in the filling, crumbcoat, wrap in plastic wrap, and place a ceramic tile on top of the cake for a few hours. (Tip from Leah_s) This seems to allow everything to settle before I put the fondant on the cake.

I advise not to crumbcoat prior to settling. torte, fill, wrap, place tile, wait.

AWhat is this about a tile? Never heard of that before

The tile is to weigh down the cake.

Using a weight is connected to what has not been mentioned yet--which is how long the cake layers have sat after baking.

I prefer to bake late in the evening and let my layers sit overnight in the pans with a dish towel over them. Depending on the day of the week,  I would fill and crumbcoat early in the morning, throw that into the fridge until I came home from work, then finish ice and decorate in the evening.  Never had any problems with the cake settling.

But if you have baked and chilled the cake layers without at least 2 hours at room temperature, then you should expect settling problems in anything bigger than 7" diameter. It takes a good 2 hours for all the steam and gases that are created by baking to come all the way out of the cake.