Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

How can I achieve nice sharp edges not using ganache? I am a making a 5 tier wedding cake double barrel but the bride has an allergy to chocolate. It makes her eyes water, not good on your wedding day!! Does anyone have any thoughts on how to get the best results, I am not convinced buttercream will be the best solution.

Anyone help
xx

Have you checked if its a dairy allergy she has? It sounds like it as I have the same thing and cannot eat chocolate. If it is you can get dairy free choc and use soya cream instead of thick cream. Hope this helps.

Ahh that sounds like an idea does it work as well with soya cream .. Thank you for the answer. Do you think white chocolate ganache would work as well ?

Hello cazhgs

Another way would be to crumbcoat the cake with a crusting buttercream. Let the buttercream set hard in the fridge before icing. Some decorators cover the cake with a thin cover of marzipan before icing or, if marzipan is not liked, a first thin cover of sugarpaste as a base before the main covering. Either way the thin cover should be allowed to dry overnight before the final cover. This will make a good firm platform for sharpening up the edges with a couple of smoothers.
To make crusting buttercream use more icing sugar to butter ratio or substitute some of the butter for trex as in the ingredients in following tutorial:

Rustic Wedding

White chocolate ganache will work. It doesn’t always set hard when using cream subsitutes, in which case increase the amount of chocolate and use same ratio of the substitute. My new ganache filling and covering charts may be of help, to see them peek here:

Carry on Ganaching! New Charts and Recipes

Thank you so much madeitwithlove X

Sorry madeitwithlove , I have to cover a 12inch by 6inch high cake with the white chocolate. What do you suggest is the amount I use . Where can I find a simple recipe? Thank you again x

Just to clarify first that white chocolate is mainly cocoa butter and milk solids, will this be alright for your client?
No allergies to dairy?? I’m asking because you’ve indicated using soya substitute for the cream. If it’s not ok you’ll need to get dairy free white chocolate. Some supermarkets like Sainsbury’s and Tesco do keep it. For larger quantities look online for ‘dairyfree white chocolate’ or vegan chocolate.

If all is well, for cover only, you will need probably not more than 1300 gms of ganache made up using 3 x chocolate to 1 x cream ratio. That breaks down 980 gms of white chocolate to 320 gms of cream. You might have a little left over, depends on how thickly you apply it. Unfortunately the new charts for which I have given links for do not open. I’ll have to let the site know in the morning. I’m sorry for any inconvenience but hope the above figures help. When the charts are working, you’ll see they go up to 4″ deep cakes so it would be fairly easy to work out for 6″ from those figures. Hope this is ok for you. x

Thank you once again. No dairy allergies this time 🙂 Can I find a link for the instructions how you make it. I usually melt chocolate boil cream and mix together slowly. 🙂 thank you x

Paul has ganache making tutorials in the free section of the site. Have a peek here:

Using Ganache

Is it possible please that you could try the links which I have set above and let me know whether they open for you. I’m viewing in Firefox and non of the links in a lot of the tutorials are not opening unless I change my browser to microsoft edge.
Not sure what’s happening, but I don’t want anyone to miss out on the new charts. x

Hi again, they only work if you highlight them and go to the link. That way they open fine. They don’t open just by clicking on them. Once again thank you x

What I meant was did the links for the new ganache charts work. There are three red links which go to charts for the different coverage and filling quantities.