AI was recently told to try The Well Dressed Cakes recipe for SMBC by I cake artist I very much admire. First try went well, second and third try were perfection. Then this wk both batches were a mess! They just wouldn't come together, after an hr they never matured passed the curdled stage and was also a liquidy mess. I use a Sunbeam mixmaster stand mixer and unfortunately they don't offer a paddle attachment. So for the first batch I used my hand mixer (has the attachment). After 45 mins I quit. Then my second batch did the same thing, but after about 30 minutes with the hand mixer I moved it over to the stand mixer and tried beating it on speed 1 for another 20-30 minutes and still nothing. Any idea why it wouldn't come together?

My second issue is this purple satin ice fondant! I have only used bought fondant 3 times. One was white, but I can't remember the brand (LOVED it), second was a Wilton black AWFUL experience and now with the purple satin ice. It felt good when kneading it and seamed to roll nicely. Then I put it on the cake. It started tearing and cracking!

Is this something that happens a lot with this brand or did I make a user error some where? I use my hands to smooth it before my fondant smoother, but it was tearing before I got the chance to use the smoother. Then even where it didn't tear it looked really dried out. Any tails would be greatly appreciated!

I can't speak to the failed IMBC - but as for Satin Ice - I have found that while it works great for me, it is more dry than most other fondants I have used (homemade or purchased).  When I roll it, I keep the underside dusted with PS or CS and keep the top with a thin smear of shortening.

I've found I had a hard time with satin ice. Too much tearing and breakage. I use fondarific now and I don't have that trouble. It's also cut down on any bulges or bubbles that were an issue before.

AThat's the smbc recipe I use, with a couple of tweaks. Satin Ice? Wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. Nevermind that it elephant skins fast, it's just accelerated by the cold surface of the smbc. As far not coming together? I don't know how it would behave without serious power beating it, like Kitchen Aid or other heavy duty mixer.

ALiquidy mess says to me something was too cold. Did you refrigerate the icing at any time during the process and go back to beating it?

AOh Jamie! You are the wonderful cake artist I was referring to. I almost sent you a msg, but felt bad about bothering you! Yet here you are helping me :-). You are truly amazing!!!!! I didn't refrigerate it. The only thing I can come up with that I did different was the butter. The first 3 times I made it, I pulled the butter out just before starting the egg whites And sliced it then. This wk I left it out over night to warm to room temp. Would this make a difference?

It would, but it would be completely opposite of what you described! How weird! Softer butter would make for almost instant soft and mixed smbc. Colder butter usually has to go thru that curdled stage, and eventually it relaxes into smooth smbc. Very perplexing. Where's the TRUE expert, Jennifer Bratko, aka FromScratchSF?

AHere is the recipe I found, is it the right one?

http://cakecentral.com/a/the-well-dressed-cake-swiss-meringue-buttercream-with-variations#comment-list

ARoom temperature as far as most baking/pastry applications go is between 68-72 degrees (+/- 2 degrees per some texts I've seen). If your butter is too soft aka somewhat melted, you will end up with a soupy mess. At the above temps butter is soft but still plastic in nature meaning it holds its shape and can be bent without it breaking. If you poked it with a finger it would give and leave an indentation. Think of it this way, butter in solid state has a crystalline structure; as it warms up, the solid crystalline structure converts to liquid oily structure, once it goes there, you can't get that solid configuration back. If you placed melted butter in the fridge it would get solid but it won't go back to the solid it was when you bought it.

Just like when you cream butter and sugar for a cake, you're often told that if the butter is too soft or melted it's ruined for creaming. This is because melty butter no longer has the plastic structure for the sugar crystals to cut into to create the minute air pockets that are essential for the creaming method. It's sort of the same with your smbc. If the butter is melted or warmed to a certain point, it's ruined for that application (you could still use it for applications that call for melted butter like some types of cookies for example).

Shall I assume that your "room temperature butter" left overnight was actually warmer than implied room temp? In the previous attempts you brought your butter out right before you started and it was soft enough to give a successful result, that leads me to believe that leaving your butter out in similar temps overnight gave you butter that was too warm hence the soup. If the first method worked for you why not stick with it?

If your butter is too cold, you would end up with a chunky curdled mixture. This is typically not a bad thing because with continued mixing (as newbies are often advised with smbc) the mixture warms up gradually allowing the butter to warm up and giving the emulsion a chance to come together. When your butter is too warm/melted, there's little structure to work with. In some cases you may be able to salvage the soup by cooling it briefly before mixing again but often that results in BC that's less stable than if your butter was the right temp in the first place.

AVgcea, Thank you for the detailed description. That makes so much sense! I read to leave it out over night, so after I went to the store I just left it out. I believe that day my ac wasn't able to keep up and it was around 77° in the house. The butter was very soft, I had to scrap it in because it wouldn't hold shape. Thank you to everyone for all the help. Being self taught with no one around to ask for help, it is so nice to have you all lending a helpful hand!!!!!!

I have just been through a similar issue with one of my apprentices ie SMBC that won't come together no matter how long you beat it.  After a little investigation discovered that she hadn't mixed the egg whites and sugar together enough and bought it to the right temp (in our case we bring it to 80c) so the sugar wasn't fully dissolved.  As I said the SMBC would not come together and had a very fine grainy feel.  Hope you can work it out.  And Satin Ice - never!

A810whitechoc, thank you so much. I made sure we reached 160 on my candy thermometer, so I believe the sugar was fully dissolved, but I will definitely pay close attention to that next time just to be sure!

I really thought satin ice was what I had used in the past or I would have never ordered it. Once it came I knew that wasn't what I had purchased in the past. I just wish I could figure out what I had used the one time before! Oh well, I guess that's what i get for trying to save time ;-)