Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi there,

Made an 8 inch round madeira cake last week which baked really well. I baked the cake one day, then wrapped etc and covered the next day. I put a layer of buttercream in the middle and a thin layer around the outside. I got the buttercream really straight, then covered with the sugarpaste. Once I have covered the cake and straightened all the edges etc, I found the cake had a bulge around the centre and no matter how much I smoothed the cake, it just looked really bulgy?

Can anyone tell me where I went wrong? Should I have left the buttercream to dry slightly before adding covering paste?

Thanks
Siobhan

Hello Siobhan,
I’m not sure if this is the answer you need now, but i saw a demonstration with Tracey Mann yesterday & she said the best way was to buttercream the cake then put it in the fridge for a few hours then re-coat it again, it stops the bulging.
Her cake look pretty amazing, maybe this will help for next time.

Ok thanks, I thought that was probably the case, next time I will leave more time to do these things!! lol

Hi Siobhan

Paul has a tutorial in the free/beginners section on layering a cake with butter cream which also covers crumb coating.
This information on crumb coating might also be of help to you http://www.wilton.com/blog/index.php/start-with-a-crumb-coat-for-a-smooth-cake-finish/. Alternatively you could fill the cake with butter cream and crumb coat with white chocolate ganache. I make strong white ganache 3 x chocolate to 1 x double cream ratio. The ganache sets hard and smooth for the fondant to go on.

Make sure to press down really firmly on the top of the cake once it’s been filled so any excess squeezes out the side then use a scraper to go around the sides and just leave a thin coating of buttercream. I do this and then cover my cake straight away. My cakes never see the inside of a fridge, even with ganache 🙂