buttercream frosting under fondant

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Permalink Reply by Marsha Winbeckler on June 18, 2011 at 1:57am

Is your buttercream made with butter or shortening or a combination?

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Permalink Reply by Pearse Hashmi Franklin on June 18, 2011 at 10:42am

planning to use combination type. is it  good to  make a crusting type of buttercream or not. will that affect the fondant finish.Serious cakes has a crusting recipe they say. never had tried that.

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Permalink Reply by Marsha Winbeckler on June 18, 2011 at 11:23am

For under fondant, we us an all-butter icing because butter gets harder when cooled than shortening. We cool the buttercream-frosted cake before adding the fondant. Be sure to get the buttercream surface very smooth. The butter gets really hard (much harder than shortening) so you have a firm surface for smoothing the fondant. Here's photos of some of our cakes www.AmazingCakeArt.com

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Permalink Reply by Keegan Luvs Cake on June 18, 2011 at 12:14pm

Not to get off topic but will your all butter icing crust well in humidity Marsha? I had a terrible time with my BC not crusting and saw your hi-ratio recipe on your site and was going to try it.

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Permalink Reply by Pearse Hashmi Franklin on June 18, 2011 at 2:21pm

so How thick should be the buttercream frosting on the cake  be below the fondant. Thanks Marsha for all your input and guideance.

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Permalink Reply by Marsha Winbeckler on June 18, 2011 at 4:58pm

@Pearse, Since most people remove the fondant, you want your buttercream thick enough so they get enough icing with the cake--about 1/4".

 

@Pearse & Keegan

We use 2 different icings. The recipe on our web site and mentioned in my video is our shortening-based, crusting decorating buttercream icing. We use it for buttercream frosted and decorated cakes (no fondant). Butter has a much lower melting temp than shortening so all-butter icings do not work well for piping (get too soft). Plus the yellow shade of the butter will not allow you to get true colors like blue, violet, etc.

 

Our all-butter icing is just for using under fontant. Butter gets much harder when chilled than shortening so it gives a firmer surface to work with when applying fondant. 

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Permalink Reply by Keegan Luvs Cake on June 19, 2011 at 10:56am

Thanks Marsha! I guess, I was thinking that you needed a crusting BC under fondant to get get the smoothness and sharp edges.

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Permalink Reply by Marsha Winbeckler on June 19, 2011 at 11:03am

You were thinking firmness, but instead of crusted firmness, the firmness of the already-smoothed and chilled buttercream gives a solid surface for the fondant.

 

You usually spritz water on buttercream before adding fondant (unless it has condensation from being chilled) so that would eliminate the crusted effect anyway.

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