Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi Everyone,

I was watching Pauls tuturial on buttercreaming cake before applying fondant. He chilled his for 30 minutes. I have to chill mine for hours as I have tried to chill it for 40 minutes but the buttercream is never firm enough and the fondant gets bumpy because the buttercream starts moving under the cake.

How long does everyone leave their buttercream to chill before applying fondant?

hi you may be putting to much buttercream on the cake try useing a thinner coat

hope it helps

This may sound silly but are you using butter or margarine? Butter will go hard in the fridge but Marg will not.

Plus I leave mine over night if I have the time.

I read alot about how Americans buttercream their cakes as it appears they often use buttercream rather than sugarpaste.   They apply two layers of buttercream, a crumb coat (to seal all the crumbs in) and then the final top coat.  I now do a crumb coat before adding the layer of sugarpaste and don’t have any problems –

Make up a batch of buttercream and use some to fill the cake as you normally would.  With the remainder, thin it down a bit with milk.  Apply a thin layer to the whole cake with a palette knife, smoothing it down as you go.  When you’ve got it on, put the palette knife in a jug of boiling water to heat it up and sweep the knife over the cake creating a very smooth surface (you will have to keep sticking the knife in the hot water to keep it heated).  As it’s only a thin layer of buttercream  the cake doesn’t need long in the fridge before it’s set enough for you to whip out and ice.  Good luck!