Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi, I normally make cake using Pauls chocolate cake recipe and ganache. However,I’ve been asked on a couple of occasions for sponge cake and buttercream and I’m really struggling with it. I’m finding that once I take the cake out of the fridge and cover it with sugar paste, the buttercream is not holding any structure and my cakes look “saggy.” Also if I try to decorate them straight away I have issues with the decorations also sagging. Where am I going wrong?

Hi Diane

The problem may be that you’re using the same buttercream for filling and crumbcoating. If you make a stiffer BC, using more icing sugar ratio to butter for the crumbcoat, it will set harder and won’t sag. Alternatively you could make a crusting BC for the outside and make a different one for the filling. For crusting buttercream click on the ingredients tab and scroll down here:

Rustic Wedding

Thank you so much for that. Yes that’s definitely where I’ve been going wrong! I will give that a go and see if it helps

I forgot to say you can also strenghthen buttercream with melted white chocolate. Have a look at Paul’s buttercream tutorials here:

Making and using buttercream