I recently did a wedding cake. It was a chocolate cake filled with raspberry filling. (I use buttercream as my barrier to hold the filling in the cake). The cake was finished with rolled fondant. By the time I was finished decorating, one of the layers had gotten too warm, the buttercream got too soft and the filling started coming out of the sides of the cake. It was the top layer, so it's not like there was extra weight on this layer. I ended up doing the whole top layer over again. My question is if anyone has any tricks that I don't know of to avoid these problems or should I just not do wedding cakes in chocolate anymore? By the way, my chocolate cake is very moist and dense and I realize I could use a chiffon or genoise and avoid this problem all together, but my customers come to me because of my chocolate cake, so I don't want to do that if I don't have to. If anyone has any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate the input. Thanks!

By Panini (Panini) on Monday, September 03, 2001 - 10:36 am: Edit

It sounds as if your filling and buttercream is the problem. You may want to go to a frosting as a barrier. Also, if your not using multiple circles, you might want to try that. Ya know, circles of buttercream 1/2 " apart going all the way to the center, than just put the filling between the lines. Does that make sense? Your fondanting the layers before you stack right? What is your formula for the filling and what are your ingredients?
Jeff

By momoreg on Monday, September 03, 2001 - 10:33 pm: Edit

You can also sub about20% shortening for the butter in your icing. It won't melt quite so easily.

By Nicz (Nicz) on Wednesday, September 05, 2001 - 02:19 pm: Edit

The concentric circles is an idea that I may have to employ. I know that the problem is the filling. It is just raspberry jam with fresh strawberries folded into it (my only non-made from scratch filling in the bakery and people go nuts for it - go figure!). It's not a very stable filling and the weight of the chocolate cake doesn't help the situation. And yes, I do put the fondant on b/f stacking. Furthermore, my buttercream is 2/3 butter - 1/3 shortening. I just thought maybe someone knew a trick that I didn't (like using the circles of buttercream) instead of just not using the combination of that cake and filling anymore. Thanks for your input.

By Nicz (Nicz) on Wednesday, September 05, 2001 - 02:20 pm: Edit

p.s. ecxuse my ignorance, but what do you mean by frosting, Jeff?

By Yankee on Wednesday, September 05, 2001 - 09:21 pm: Edit

Your filling may just be too loose. Try adding gelatin to it, especially if it's going to be a warm day. "Grocery Store" jams are usually too loose to use as fillings (since they are designed to be soft and break down easily), unless you are using just a very thin layer.

Methinks the buttercream "dam" around each layer should hold it in. Was it hard to cut? If it was that squishy it must have been a bit messy to try and portion out.

I also do the fillings and buttercream work the day before, so the cake/buttercream/filling has a chance to really firm up overnight in the walk-in. Any type of filling, even buttercream, really needs a chance to frim up and set.

Good luck.

By Panini (Panini) on Wednesday, September 05, 2001 - 10:39 pm: Edit

Just my interpretation: Buttercream, egg whites ,sugar, softened butter ya know. Frosting butter, shortening and x sugar.