Hi! I am so confused regarding this! I always thought that the cake was supposed to be room temperature when covering in fondant, and I always did that, but never had clean smooth sides. So before my last cake, I posted on CC and everyone responded saying that the cake should be COLD straight out of the fridge. I did exactly that, and landed up with frosting sliding down under the fondant, HUGE air bubbles, and a disaster, amateur looking cake. I was horrified! Can someone please clarify the temperature thing?

The cake should be cold. If it's starts to get room temperature, you will end up smushing the icing. You want the icing hard and cold so you can play with your fondant,...smooth it and make it pretty. Now that being said..., I do find that you have to work quickly because the cake will start to sweat and you have to be careful to watch for air bubbles and such as you smooth the cake. In fact, when i find my icing getting to room temperature as I'm decorating...I usually pop the cake back in the fridge so it can harden back up for a few minutes.

I do mine at room temp. The lack of "clean smooth sides" could be not letting the cake settle, too much filling, maybe the buttercream used for your "pool" is too soft. Remember that the fondant will only be as smooth as the surface is under it. hth

Charliecakes- if you see your cake is starting to get airbubbles, what do you do? I found that even if it was perfectly smooth, as soon as the cake started getting warm, the airbubbles developed.

I always apply my fondant to the cake right out of the fridge. I work in an air conditioned room so the condenstion takes longer to happen. If I do develope air bubbles I use a small sharp pin to prick the fondant where you cant see it and smooth the hole while the fodant is still soft.

Yes..as cr8zchpr said...if i get air bubbles, i prick them with a hat box pin and that air will escape.. just poke a small hole, the air will escape and I sometimes rub that spot gently. I have also found that I tend to develop air bubbles on spots where I missed misting or wetting the cake down prior to putting my fondant on...or I guess you could say a dry spot.

I crumb coat & BC ice my cake at barely cool or room temp. I let it settle at room temp.

I put it in the fridge before applying the fondant--but only for 15-30 mins.--so that the BC hardens. I can't test it, but I'm guessing that the temp of the actual cake center barely rises.

Doing it this way, I don't smoosh the BC and I don't get condensation.

Rae

this is all interesting to me. i have only done a few fondant covered cakes and i have never covered chilled cake and i have never had an issue getting the fondant smooth.

You don't have to do it this way.

I do it because my cake recipe is very moist and because I put a full coat of BC under my fondant. If my cakes aren't at least very, very cool, they distort too much under the "work" of smoothing the fondant. If the cake is chilled & I work quickly, it's a work & time saver.

Rae

I've done it both ways... I prefer to cover a chilled cake, I like to have a firm surface to apply the fondant to.

However, room temp or chilled, the only time I got "sagging" or bulges was when I didn't let the cake settle enough, or had too much of a soft filling.

If your bc isn't made with butter, for example Indybebi's bc, then wouldn't refrigerating the cake be a mute point since it doesn't harden? I'm also confused as to why you need a crusting bc when covering a cake with fondant when I've heard that you should lightly spray the cake so that the fondant will stick. Why bother with it crusting then??? Can anyone enlighten me please? TIA

It really depends on where you are.

From my experience, where I live, it is warm & humid all year round., putting a thick layer of BC underneath the fondant never works for me, regardless of whether the cake is cold or not.

Once the cake gets to room temp (i.e. when it's waiting to be served), the BC will start to smoosh hence causing the fondant to droop at the bottom at the sides of the cake.

I've never tried with just crumbcoating the cake underneath the fondant yet, as I had straightaway jumped into the ganache boat, and that solved all my fondant problems.
Maybe just crumbcoating and applying fondant on, may help with not having fondant droop downward. IDK.

Also to add, sometimes, pricking the air bubbles with a pin never works, they do work at times, but at times they just won't, you keep pricking but they triumphantly stay there staring at you making you wanna cry.

how much bc should you apply to a cake before applying fondant? I have never done one before and have a request to do a wedding cake in the fall.

What BC recipe are you using?
How long in the fridge?
What fondant recipe are you using?
How much frosting under the fondant?
How thick is the fondant?
How much experience do you have working with fondant?

IMO, there is a lot more information that needs to be given before we can help. Your icing under your fondant will make all the difference in the world as to how it works.

I hadn't had an issue with air bubbles under my fondant covered cakes until I started to refrigerate them before covering. I used to not refrigerate my cakes, just because I didn't want them to dry out, but when I have several or the fillings need to be refrigerated, until delivery, I started refrigerating. Now, I have a great firm surface to work with, but then the pesky bubbles show up! You can see on in my stacked B/W/G cake. It formed(on the green tier) over a few hours of working on the top tier-GRRR.

Are you doing anything to help the fondant stick to the buttercream such as spritzing it with water first? It sounds a lot to me like air bubbles forming in dry spots where the fondant doesn't adhere well. As time goes on you can notice bubbles in the spots where the fondant pulls away from the sides because it "loses suction" so to speak. We used to call them cake tumors until we solved that problem lol.

Ok, I might look silly here....but what about frozen cake? I am fairly new to fondant, but have done several cakes with it and had only minor problems so far.

I started decorating cakes working in a grocery store bakery, and was taught to freeze the cake before base icing. While I have decorated room temp cakes too, the frozen ones were much easier to deal with and I had no worries about crumbs. When I started doing cakes at home, I have continued to work with frozen cake because thats what I am familiar with....Is this a bad thing?

(forgive this newbie! lol )

I don't have a spritzer-every spray bottle I've bought doesn't *spray* or *mist* do you have a suggestion on a brand? I've tried misting using my airbrush, but I think that takes a little time, and doesn't mist enough, and so I have wet paper towels and dizzled water droplets, and dabbed the sides with them. So *dry* spots could be my problem. Again-any mister suggestions?

I just use a bowl of water and a big paintbrush that I've wiped the excess water off on a towel.