... And this is what happens when a 3-tier topsy-turvy gets pastry crème as filling in the middle tier⦠Bottom was rock solid with chocolate cake and Kahlua ganache with roasted hazelnuts (yum!) â I think it would have supported the top layers even without the dowels, and the fondant went on as smooth as it ever could! But even while I was filling the vanilla tier, nicely mortared (!), I knew it wasnât going to survive â I think my pastry crème layers were too generous even with the mortar, and the weight of it all shifted the carved bottom tortes off balance. Still, it survived long enough for picturesâ¦

But thatâs not all that went wrong with this cake â or rather this one tier:
-- I had to bake one of the vanilla layers twice, as I did cake mix plus extender, but was on the phone with my friend, co-hosting the shower, and I forgot to add the butter for the extender (!) so it only had the vegetable oil for the mix and its texture was very wrong â I realized that 5 min into the baking, as I saw my nicely soften butter on the counter â on the bright side, it was ready for the redoâ¦
-- The milk for the pastry crème curdled when I heated it up (with an exp. date 9 days ahead) which threw me completely off schedule as I couldnât run to the store that instant, in fact not until 4 hours later.
-- The white SatinIce was a nightmare⦠It kept tearing, overstretching, and doing all kinds of weird things, and after the third roll, I decide it was going on the care regardless â as you can see, it looks like a cheese cloth all over, not like fondantâ¦

People were terrified of losing the cake and wanted me to take it apart right away. I knew its structure had the strength to hold on for a few more minutes, even with the abyss widening, and I was very amused to see their fear of not getting to eat it should it fall over⦠Well⦠for a second topsy-turvy (my first was only 2 tiers) I think it did ok⦠Here is the less disastrouns view in my pics: http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1206631.html

Moral of the story for me: Iâll stick with ganache and buttercream for the topsy-turvies, pastry crème is too much of pain for them

Many thanks to âjkalmanâ for the inspiration from her âOliviaâ cake, and her tips for making it (carve first, fill next, mortar, mark tortes to reassemble exactly, etc.) posted in multiple topsy-turvy threads!

Oh my! Lesson learned for us all!! Thanks for sharing! NO PASTRY CREAM IN TOPSY TURVEY CAKE!

Well the bottom tier looks beautiful (and sounds delicious) and you did a great job decorating. Too bad that middle tier decided not to behave and messed up such a pretty cake!

Hey there! Sorry to ask this, but it looks like your tiers are stacked on top of one another at angles instead of straight up and down?? Did you mark the tiers on each cake, then carve out the excess cake until it was level, then dowl it?

If so, then you did a great job in optically fooling me!! Too bad the center tier was too moist to hold up!

well, the bottom tier is JUST GORGEOUS! the colors are awesome and I'm sooo sorry the middle tier decided to be such a pain in your a$$...