Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

I’m covering a three tier wedding cake with renshaws regalice, its turning into a nightmare as the icing looks like elephant skin, the cake is very plain so its so obvious. Shall i give the cake another layer of icing or strip it off and start again. I’m quite panicked as this is the smallest layer so worried sick about the othertwo

Hi. I have had this problem in the past and discovered that it can be due to icing sugar being kneaded into the sugarpaste before rolling it out which causes it to become dry. I also find that if the icing is rolled out too thinly it rips very easily when covering the cake. It should be ok to cover the cake with another layer of icing or you could start again and perhaps roll it out slightly thicker and not use so much icing sugar when rolling it out. I am sure someone else would have another suggestion to help with this. All the best with the cake!

Thanks, I phoned Renshaws and their advice was to knead it until soft and pliable but in smaller peices and then knead as one ball, to then put a small amount of icing sugar on the worktop and roll out. They also said that the fondant was under a lot of stress because the cake is 6″ in height. I followed the advice and there was a little crazing but not very noticable. Im going to cover the bigger layers tomorrow, already worrying. I thought cake decorating was meant to be fun!!!!!

Hi, I used to have this problem. Now when kneading I don’t use any thing on my work surface and when rolling out I use a 50/50 mix of icing sugar and cornflour. Not had any problems since. Good Luck.