Best Icing For Outside In 96 Deg Heat?
Decorating By Wildgirl Updated 2 Sep 2012 , 3:02pm by FullHouse
Any icing recipe that uses all shortening probably will have that same mouth feel. Personally I don't notice it in most icings. It might be the perticular shortening you are using. Have you tried using Hi-ratio? That could make a difference. Also, add more flavoring....up to 2 Tablespoons per batch using 2#s of sugar.
I decided to just go ahead with it. I did use more vanilla though. Honestly, how many people are going to show up to sit outside when it's 96 deg? And these last few days,whatever temp they've been forecasting, you can add a few more deg's to it - so I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow was 100.
I think this heat is getting to me. Our house is 80 and the air has been running constantly. It's about 105 here now. Thankfully the sun will be going down soon. I just wet down some stray kitties that have made our yard their home. It's hard to care about a cake right now.
Fondant is the only way to go if you're outside in this kind of heat...
Sharon Zambito'a recipe. She lives in Louisiana. All swear by it that uses it in the heat. If and when people don,t like fondant, then you have to use a b/ c recipe that withstands the heat as best as you can. Yes, try the hi-ratio that the op mentioned also. hth
Fondant is the only way to go if you're outside in this kind of heat...
I have to agree! My daughter was married in 98 degree weather and her baker refused to put the her butter cream cake outside (good for him!). I find outdoor weddings do not go on schedule and the cake could suffer. My daughter's cake would have been in that heat for 3 hours before the cutting. I realize you have to do what the bride wants but if there is a way to keep it cold until cutting I would find out. Have you seen the video by Bronwen Weber called Melting WeddingCake?
I have to agree! My daughter was married in 98 degree weather and her baker refused to put the her butter cream cake outside (good for him!). I find outdoor weddings do not go on schedule and the cake could suffer. My daughter's cake would have been in that heat for 3 hours before the cutting. I realize you have to do what the bride wants...
NO you do not always do what the bride wants, not if it interferes with food safety.
And I am perfectly sure that a bride wants to have a decent looking cake when she cuts it...not something that looks like a trifle that broke out of prison. And what if somebody takes that poor thing home after it sat in the hot sun for umpty hours, and let it sit some more and got food poisoning or diarrhea? Think they would be grateful?
It's up to the baker to explain what the safe and practical limits of cake/icing are at the time that the order is being discussed. Make sure the restrictions are written into the contract.
[quote=
NO you do not always do what the bride wants, not if it interferes with food safety.
And I am perfectly sure that a bride wants to have a decent looking cake when she cuts it...not something that looks like a trifle that broke out of prison. And what if somebody takes that poor thing home after it sat in the hot sun for umpty hours, and let it sit some more and got food poisoning or diarrhea? Think they would be grateful?
It's up to the baker to explain what the safe and practical limits of cake/icing are at the time that the order is being discussed. Make sure the restrictions are written into the contract.[/quote]
Good Point(s). I stand corrected - Thank you
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And I am perfectly sure that a bride wants to have a decent looking cake when she cuts it...not something that looks like a trifle that broke out of prison. .
"trifle breaking out of prison." hahaha! Best mental image of the day!
I have brides come to me all the time who tell me that this or that baker assured them that they could "adjus the formula" of the buttercream so that it won't melt. That is total BS, and it just means that they'll pull all of the butter out of the icing, use an entirely shortening-based one and cross their fingers. All-crisco icings don't taste as good IMO, and in the 104 degree heat they're predicting for this afternoon yes, it will still melt. I won't do buttercream for an outdoor recpetion from May-September, and April and October are debateable. If they don't like it they can go buy a melting cake from another baker, but that's what they'll get, a melting cake.
Any of my summer brides (and a few of the early Fall too) get a warning from me that if the temps outside go above a certain point, their wedding cake WILL be covered with fondant to protect it - or I just can't take the order, because I have my business to protect. You hardly ever see compliments on line but if something goes wrong BAM!!! you see a flood of negatives............not good for business.............so I don't even want to go there. "An ounce of prevention"
Scratch that 96 deg - it's now 105 and we haven't hit the hottest part of the day yet. I will have the stand on ice, but really, even all crisco won't last in this. If I have to ever do this again I will do the fondant, but it's already done. I'll have to get a quick pic of the grad with it before it dissolves. It really makes me sad - I think this cake was my best work!
Scratch that 96 deg - it's now 105 and we haven't hit the hottest part of the day yet...... I'll have to get a quick pic of the grad with it before it dissolves. It really makes me sad - I think this cake was my best work!
Yes cake is ephemeral. But the computer experts tell us "what you post on the internet is forever" so maybe the pictures on this site will live on.
I had been thinking of making a cake so that I could test an idea for hot weather buttercream. But it's too hot to bake...I think I will just plaster the icing onto a dish and see how it does.
I put a little cake outside last year in the shade at around 6pm, since that's how brides usually tell me their cake will be different than every other melted cake. It melted. http://acaketorememberva.blogspot.com/2011/07/baby-its-hot-outside.html
All this is making me really nervous about the cake that i have to make at the end of this month....not sure how good the venue AC is.
Oh yeah, you should see the section of my contract where I address temperature...It's slightly ridiculous but it makes the point to the brides that I'm not responsible for them putting the cake in a melty place. My biggest peeve is when they swear that the cake will be inside, then when I get to the venue and the cake table is outside. A few people have tried that little bait and switch, so I put the info about temperature in the contract.
Well, it went fine! I went and got the cake out of the fridge as everyone was eating, so it didn't have to be out long before it was cut. And about that time, huge clouds came in - it didn't rain, but it did drop the temp some which really helped. The figure got a bit shiny, but the frosting did fine!
(it was indydebi's bc but I used powdered coffee creamer/water instead of milk per Sharon Z's recipe)
(oh - and I've come to realize why I do cakes - it's all an ego thing. When I hear people ooo and aaaaahhh and take pictures, ask where I bought the figure 
, say that they weren't going to have cake, but then heard it was mine and now want a big piece - that is why I do it. 
Fondant is the only way to go if you're outside in this kind of heat...
I have to agree! My daughter was married in 98 degree weather and her baker refused to put the her butter cream cake outside (good for him!). I find outdoor weddings do not go on schedule and the cake could suffer. My daughter's cake would have been in that heat for 3 hours before the cutting. I realize you have to do what the bride wants but if there is a way to keep it cold until cutting I would find out. Have you seen the video by Bronwen Weber called Melting WeddingCake?
I have forbidden my 19 year old daughter to have an out door wedding. This past April, a friend of mine had an outdoor wedding. We were a captive audience for the reception, out by the pool. Where I live, this is normal and temperatures should have been in the 70's. We froze our butts off. It was 50* with a sharp wind. I had to sit outside by the pool four hours, with no sweater and no jacket. Everyone was miserable, except the bride and groom. They were too giddy to notice. It was so uncomfortable, we ate dinner (which we could not enjoy due to shivering) and then we slipped out a side door and didn't even stay for the cake cutting....AND I MADE THE CAKE!
Recently, I delivered a three tier cake to an event home and the it was 99* with 89% humidity and again...outside wedding. An hour after I delivered the cake a great storm front came through with horrific winds. Everything was moved inside due to the storm.
Yup, no outside weddings for this cake baker's daughter!
Just thought I would share my inadvertent experiment with buttercream yesterday. I used a crusting buttercream recipe with a ratio of 25% butter, 75% hi-ratio shortening, 100% conf. sugar.
I had a small 5" cake that I used to quickly demo icing application during a private lesson. I was just bringing it home for my kids so I wasn't concerned about cooling off my car ahead of time as I do for deliveries. I turned the a/c to high immediately, but since the car was warm when I put the cake in, a large portion of icing melted and fell right off the side of the cake leaving a bald spot a few inches wide. I snapped a picture with my phone and am attaching it here. Granted, it was probably over 100F in my car and I was not handling the box carefully so this is an extreme example, but it was only hot for a few minutes and this is what happened. It is always a possibility when cake is exposed to the heat.
Please don't pay attention to the rough icing job, it was a quick demo and I only showed them how to finalize the smoothing process on one small section of the cake 
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