Hello to all:

This is my first post and my first cake so please excuse my in experience. I'm doing a super hero cake for my son's 10th birthday (picture pasted bellow)  I chose something pretty challenging for me since I have no baking or decoration experience. My son only likes chocolate and chocolate filling so I did not have many options. I already baked 3  1-1/2 inch chocolate cake layers and did a Nutella with cream cheese filling for it.

#1 I want to use chocolate ganache to crumb coat and ice the cake but I'm wondering if it will stain my yellow fondant?

#2 Should my crumb coat be hard to the touch at the time of placing my fondant like many recommend or as soon as I apply the ganache?

#2 The Nutella filling is in the fridge and looks pretty stiff, stronger than regular icing. Do I have to build a dam with the ganache or will the filling be just fine without the dam?

#3 Will the ganache, filling, and fondant hold 83 degree temperatures? I live in Miami, FL where the weather is usually much hotter than it has been this week and this will be an outside party. I do plan to place the cake in a very shady place and it's pretty windy. If you don't think it will hold, what can you all suggest?

#4 I would like to decorate my cake tomorrow night so I don't have to be rushing the day of the party and so that I will have sufficient time for a plan b if something goes wrong. Where can I store my cake once completed? I was thinking of refrigerating it and then taking it directly outside. Suggestions please.

Thanking you all for your help and suggestions. Have a great day!

Ingrid

Anyone? Please help

Your Nutella cream cheese just needs to come to temp again and it will soften, you'll probably need to re whip once it's come back to room temperature to fill. If you use a filling that's perishable, like cream cheese, your cake needs refrigerating. As a pose to ganache/BC. 

I wouldn't recommend using it this time  I'd fill and frost with ganache so you can leave it out. Fondant can be refrigerated, although some people don't like to, you just can't touch it until it's matte or it will smere. So taking it straight from the fridge to the outside will probably be a huge mess (the colors will bleed from all that condensation).

You will get a nice, firm 'shell' from the ganache. I usually torte, fill, and ganache my cakes the same day then cover the next so it's set up well but you can put them in/out of the fridge to speed that process up (I'm talking about multiple tiers/cakes obviously I have a different system then you would for one). 

I just suggested leaving it out because I suspect you will be working a bit longer

Sorry, my entire response didn't post.

If you are going to refrigerate the cake I would place it in a box [and then a bag] (not sure the extra step is needed it's just how I used to do it in my regular fridge). Then let come to room temp before taking outside-you don't want to touch your cake until it appears matte (that's how you'll know it's dry). Storing fondant covered cakes in the fridge has always been a big debate in the cake world. I always refrigerate-I just worry about the bleeding potential throughout so many deep colors, some fondants hold up better in higher temps, etc. Just so you have minimal things to worry about-hope this makes sense ;) 

You can store it on your counter/cool, dry place *away from direct sunlight, aside from the warmth the sun can cause your fondant to fade. If you used the cream cheese you'll need to refrigerate.

Concerning your question on temp, many people believe ganache to be the best option in warmer climates. You should be ok if you bring out the cake closer to serving/place it in the shade like you mentioned. Some people use hi-ratio shortening in their BC during warmer months, they'll sub some or all of the butter for it (not something I prefer myself but just so you know) and the fondant does help also but to be honest it's cake so there aren't any guarantees.

Hope this helps, just try to have fun :)

One more thing lol, you can always add Nutella to your ganache to still get that flavor in your filling (or hazelnut paste).

And using a higher ratio of chocolate to cream will create a more firm shell (more chocolate, less cream). 

Thank you!

Finished product

........my first cake so please excuse my in experience.........

You were kidding us.  That sure does not look like someone's 1st cake!  WOW.....you did a great job.

Nice! 

Thank you so much! Your tips where great although i may not have followed them all

This cake was really hard for me, but i'm proud of how it turned out.

Not lying one bit, this is the first cake ever and although by the grace of God it came out pretty good, the whole process was a chaos.

First, the cakes where way too moist and almost cracked. I had to leave the bottom layer with my parchment paper and all in order for it not to break. They were also 12 inches and not very manageable.

While crumb coating, some edges broke off so i had to work some magic. When i went to lay out my first color of fondant, i was not able to lift and fix it because the ganache stuck to the fondant like glue. I had to rip off the the fondant and re crumb coat and freeze my cake.

Like an hour after, i started the whole process again and i learned that i did not have enough red fondant and my mother gets it from me and adds more powdered sugar and totally ruined it. Luckily i had made enough and just painted some more red and to make the story short, it took me from 11:30 pm to 3:30am to decorate this baby. I think this is way too much time.

Thank you so much for taking the time to comment! Have a great day.

Sweet story:) What we won't do for our kiddos.   Now you know what it's like for many of us - even after yrs of this work there are times when we have days/nights like that LOL.