De-Constructing A Buttercream Covered Cake
Decorating By southerncross Updated 30 May 2011 , 1:00am by southerncross
I usually work in fondant for wedding cakes but now have a request for buttercream this July (I'll use Indydebi's BC of course). I made a small two layered test cake this weekend and found that when I removed the top layer for cutting, the buttercream on the lower layer lifted off leaving an unattractive bare spot. I used crusting BC and dowelled with no gap between layers. I plan on using bakers Craft SPS on the final cake.
My question is how to avoid BC sticking to the top layer cake round when it is removed.
Try any of the following:
Allow the cakes to crust thoroughly before stacking.
Sprinkle with a tiny bit of powdered sugar.
Place a circle of rice paper on the area that will be covered.
I use Sugarshack BC for most of my stacked cakes, and allowing it to crust for an hour or so works well.
Thank you so much for the wonderful tips. Have a great weekend
I sprinkle a light layer of coconut between the layers, and it works beautifully. My Wilton course teacher taught me that at the very beginning!
Just be careful sprinking on coconut. That is another ingredient you need to be aware of in case of allergies. Also the cake will now have a coconut taste for those layers. It may not pair well with all cake flavors.
Just wanted to add that if using a well-crusting BC, allowing the cake to crust before assembly should totally eliminate that issue. I always cut 90% of all of my wedding cakes and saw first hand the results ..... icing never stuck to the upper tier.
Outside of allergies on the coconut thing is also consideration of if the client even likes coconut. I hate it. I mean .... HATE it. I've said often that if I found one flake of coconut on my cake or the HINT of coconut flavor, I'd demand a full refund. And yes, I'd have the entire cake ready to hand back to you because I'd consider it inedible. So before you do this, check with the client for allergies and for taste preference.
Outside of allergies on the coconut thing is also consideration of if the client even likes coconut. I hate it. I mean .... HATE it. I've said often that if I found one flake of coconut on my cake or the HINT of coconut flavor, I'd demand a full refund. And yes, I'd have the entire cake ready to hand back to you because I'd consider it inedible. So before you do this, check with the client for allergies and for taste preference.
heehee...OK! No coconut for Indy! 
I'm the same way with almond flavoring. If I taste even a small amount of almond flavoring, I'll just about gag. 
I'm the same way with almond flavoring. If I taste even a small amount of almond flavoring, I'll just about gag.
I'm that way with the "hint of lemon" in icing. The 'excuse' I hear about adding lemon is to "give it a fresh taste". here's an idea ..... make fresh icing and you won't have to doctor the icing to make it TASTE fresh.
Besides .... it doesn't taste fresh. It tastes like lemon. And I didn't order lemon icing. 
I feel the same way about coconut. Hate it! Especially the texture when you eat it. lol
Thank you Indydebi. I see the error of my ways in not giving the BC sufficient time to crust. Once again, I am indebted to you!
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