Does anyone know if black fondant will bleed onto buttercream?  The cake design I am making has a black fondant ribbon around the bottom perimeter of each tier.  I just want to make sure it won’t bleed into the tiers.
Thanks-S

It won’t bleed on buttercream, but if you applied a black fondant ribbon to a fondant covered cake, you’d want to be careful.  It won’t really “bleed” until/unless there’s condensation from chilling.

In either case, you don’t want the black fondant to get wet (rain) otherwise it would “shed black tears”.  This happened to me when I delivered a juke box cake, and when I arrived at the planner’s, it was pouring.  We threw a bag over the cake, but when taking the wet bag off, some drips fell onto the black fondant and that in turn dripped onto the white fondant….

Thanks, I will keep that in mind since we are getting a quite a bit of rain!!  I am decorating each tier with buttercream and then each tier will have a 1-1.5” black fondant band around the bottom of the tier.  My only concern is your condensation note, because I am decorating, assembling tomorrow, refriderating, then delivering on Saturday afternoon…

s-I didn’t know you shouldn’t refrigerate fondant when i made a cake with Mousseline BC and black fondant for a checkerboard look.  I stuck the fondant on and put it in the fridge. i didn’t deliver until the following evening and there were no problems at all!

jen

Most home refrigerators are pretty dry by comparison, but the “professional” style and commercial reach in and walk in coolers are much more humid and will cause condensation to form when the cake is brought out of refrigeration.  Even after only a few hours in some cases, so typically if I am covering cakes for the next day’s work, I will put each tier in a large sheet pan bag to help minimize the sweating.  It doesn’t eliminate it, but it manages it and even though you may be using a fondant that claims it doesn’t form condensation, it’s not true!  

If you live in a climate where heat/humidity are an issue, the condensation can form after you take the cake from your home fridge to bring it to your party.  If it appears, it will eventually evaporate but that takes a few hours.

Condensation can form on ANY cold surface when it comes in contact with warm moist air.  I’ve read that placing fondant covered cakes in a cardboard box prior to refrigerating helps eliminate condensation issues as long as the cake is allowed to come to room temp while still sealed in the cardboard box.  Apparently the cardboard has pretty good insulating qualities, but I’ve never tried it (don’t work with fondant much).