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I’ve just done an open book style cake using edible imaging on icing sheets for the printed page. So quite a large area of icing sheet used. Overnight the page appeared to stretch/expand so isn’t lying as flat as it was when first applied. I used a small amount of piping gel to attach so I don’t think it’s that. I’m assuming it’s due to the slight moisture coming from the cake/fondant. Has anyone else experienced this? I’m still on my first pack of icing sheets so haven’t tried another brand yet to see if the same thing happens. There’s no branding on the pack I’ve got as it’s one I got with my printer. Any advice/suggestions gratefully received ! Thank you

Hi Julie

My icing sheets came with my printer too. They seemed rather dry and very difficult to remove from the backing paper. I use a little vodka to wet the surface of the cake to make it tacky so the icing sheet sticks on without problems. Vodka dries very quickly and doesn’t affect the texture of the icing sheet. It’s possible that your icing sheet took on moisture from the piping gel or from the the cake icing itself. Was the icing allowed to dry/crust over before the image was stuck down? Are you able to salvage your work? If you re-do the image, perhaps use a little edible glue rather than piping gel to stick it down and allow plenty of ventillation to encourage drying.

To be fair these icing sheets are very flexible and easy to remove from the backing sheet. They came from The Cake Decorating Company with the printer. I think that part of the problem was maybe not having time to leave the sugarpaste to really dry out before applying the icing sheet. I think I’ll have to try that out on a cake for home consumption to see if that helps. I’ll try vodka as well next time, as I guess even piping gel takes a while to dry so the icing sheet will be absorbing any moisture during that time. I managed to salvage the cake by being a bit ‘creative’ , although hate having to do patch ups, but didn’t have the time to redo. Thanks for your help MIWL.

…. well at least you did you best to salvage the cake. The icing sheets which I got with my printer became so brittle they were not fit for purpose. In the end I threw them away. I think they had been stored incorrectly, so I had the opposite to your problem. Glad all worked out for you in the end.