Hello! I made the cake below this past Saturday for a little boy at church. Thankfully it was just for practice, because it didn't make it to the party the same as it left the house!
I need your help! How would I transport a cake like this for the future? It's two 8 inch cakes on the bottom and 2 nine inch on top of that. The dome is made from the tops that I cut off the cakes. I froze the whole thing for 30 minutes so I could carve it. After I was done with the crumb coat, I inserted 7 dowels evenly in the cake. I was a little worried because it would wobble just a bit as I moved it. Well, it wobbled a LOT on the car ride. When we got there, I guess the cake had shifted from the wobbling and had pressed down, causing the icing to come off in spots - kinda like an air bubble had popped....which was probably caused by the wobbling. However, the layers didn't slide (thanks to the dowels) but the cake did lean slightly backwards.
Please tell me how to do this right! I know it can be done because I've seen other large cupcake pictures on this website. I was very pleased with the cake and so was everyone else - I just want to do it right next time!

Couple of things come to mind:

Did you place a cardboard round between the 8 and 9 in tiers? And dowel the botton 8in tier? With that amount of cake you need to treat it like a tiered cake.

You may need a more dense cake recipe that will hold up to the carving/stacking.

After getting the cakes stacked/filled it's a good idea to let the cakes rest and settle. This gives you an opportunity to see if you have problem areas.

Then once the cake is complete I'd center dowel it for increased stability.

d

wow, dodibug took the words right out of my mouth!

I used the WASC recipe and it always holds up pretty well for carving. I let it set overnight so the cake would settle.
Question - when you're going to carve a cake how can you place a board underneath the layers? You wouldn't be able to use the serrated knife to cut through that and it would make a mess. How do you go about using boards if you don't know the final shape?
PS - I used 7 dowels..........how many more should I have used?

You can easily put a 6" covered board under an 8" cake. That way, you can dowel and have room to carve. I do this all the time. It's only an inch or so hanging over the board once you are finished and if your cake is dense like WASC or pound cake, it's not going to budge.

Well, duh! I never thought of that. Thanks for the help. Using the board in between will keep it from wobbling at all?

you would still have to dowel under the board, as you would to stack any cake. I would only use 4 dowels under that board though. If you are uncomfortable with stability once it is completely carved and assembled, you can still drive a center dowel through it into your cake base to keep it steady.

To answer the question of carving and using boards.

I freeze my cakes then stack (without any filling or support) then I do all of my carving. I mark one side of each cake so I can line them all back up when I re-stack.

I unstack and add in my filling, boards, and dowels.

Was your cake still frozen when you frosted it? There are several threads on this site about thawing cakes and the gases escaping causing bubble and popping.

Judi