Wedding cake help

[Viggooooh]

I'm making a wedding cake for my friends. I've done wedding cakes for friends before but normal flavours - vanilla/chocolate/fruit. They've asked for a Red Velvet Cake but I'm not sure what to cover it with? I'd usually do a cream cheese frosting for Red Velvet but that won't work for a wedding cake. Any ideas? Will a normal vanilla buttercream work?

one of the layers i ordered for my daughters wedding cake was red velvet and it came with fondant icing the same as the other two layers which were vanilla and chocolate

Why won’t cream cheese frosting work? If you make a buttercream with part butter and part cream cheese then it should be stiff enough to do a good covering. Or just under fondant icing, it depends what sort of finish and decoration they want?

Because wedding cakes sit out at room temperature at cream cheese needs to be refrigerated until serving.

Could you do an Ermine frosting instead?

I looked into ermine frosting, it sounds delicious but comments about it seem to suggest it's also not stiff enough to put under fondant

Thanks! Good to know this. Think I will just stick with my usual vanilla buttercream frosting then

Ah just realised I misread this. Yes it will have fondant icing but under the fondant and between the layers it will need some kind of frosting. Can you remember what was in the red velvet layer?

I'm wondering if you could experiment with the buttercream icing to give it a bit of a tang? So it tastes more like cream cheese icing.

I tend to use vanilla, but you can buy cream cheese flavoured icing sugar which I have heard good things about, might be worth an experiment?

Ooh never heard of this.Think i will do as you and itsapalaver have suggested and try and play around with the flavour to make it more cream cheesy/tangy. Have also been looking at Swiss meringue buttercream which I have always thought seemed a bit too faffy but thinking that might go better with the red velvet as it sounds like it would be more rich/less sweet

I think Foodie Flavours do a cream cheese flavour essence? You could add it to normal buttercream but also to white chocolate ganache.

I'd always steer clear of actual cream cheese if I wasn't going to eat the cake straight away as it's more likely to go off than other frostings.

Sorry just seen your message it had buttercream in the layers and a thin layer of buttercream to hold the fondant and i picked it up the day before the wedding and it was fine