Hello everyone,

I am having a carrot cake order dilemma and i would like some advise.

I have an order for a carrot cake and the lady is very particular in what she wants even though i have advised her based on her request. Before i cancel the order, here is the situation.

She want a 10" cake with a harley davidson logo on it. She wants carrot cake but wants to have AMBC cream cheese icing (butter, icing sugar and creamcheese) in 8 layers. the harley davidson skull logo in fondant

I have told her that because the cake has to be covered in fondant and using AMBC creamcheese will be too soft and the layers will blend into each other because of the weight of the other layers and then fondant on top and the sides will bulge out with the buttercream. I have suggested using SMBC instead because i find that to be more stable and will have nice defined layers but she is quite persistent and wants the more tradition icing for carrot cakes.

I am slightly worried about making this cake, putting the fondant on and then the sides bulge out and ruin the smoothness of the fondant andthus the cake.

I can suggest that instead of covering the cake in fondant, have it covered in buttercream and then have the harley davidson skull logo on top of the buttercream. this way i feel more confident that the layers will hold as long as it is in the fridge. working with creamcheese is not one of my fond experiences but maybe i am doing something wrong. I find it turns really soupy really fast so i stay away from it.

Am i right or am i just being overly cautious because of my past experiences? If i slice the cake into 8 layers and use the AMBC creamcheese will the layers collapse or will the layers hold? Do i have to constantly have it in the fridge so it can still look pretty?

If i cover in creamcheese buttercream then fondant, will the buttercream bulge, esp if the cake if out of the fridge for a few hours?

Any advise or suggestions especially from anyone who has used creamcheese buttercream as a filling would be great.

Just one last hickup... I live in switzerland and people here dont like things too sweet so using lots of icing sugar is not an option to improve the stability because it would be way to sweet for the taste buds here. This is why i prefer using SMBC instead.

Any help???

Many thanks

Davina

And so sorry for the long conversation!!!

Edna Delacruz has a crusting cream cheese buttercream recipe on her website ( design me a cake).  That would be plenty sturdy enough for fondant.  Or, you could fill with cream cheese buttercream and cover with ABC, SMBC  or white chocolate ganache.

As long as you don't put an inch of really soft buttercream in the layers, you shouldn't have an issue.  And, you could always put a ganache dam in the layers as well.

You said 8 layers of cake.  If your tier is taller than 6", you'll wanna put a board and supports in there.  That will help as well.

Thanks for the reply! I decided to try and see if the creamcheese would soup up like it usually does and it did. Then after a bit of searching I discovered that the Philly sold in Switzerland is different to the one in the US and has a higher liquid content which is why it soups up. 

So there really isn't much I can do apart from trying to see if fresh cream cheese (frischkäse) would work better. 

I will give this a try with the recipe suggested to see if she prefers this.

thanks for your reply. There are some useful suggestions I can try and see if she will accept this.

all the best

davina