I had my first major cake disaster. Itâs still sitting in my freezer waiting to be turned into cakeballs.

I wanted to try my hand at a purse cake for my co workers daughterâs birthday. Since I am new I thought that I could just make an 8â round in a 3âhigh pan and cut off some of the bottom for the purse. I cut the cake in half horizontally and used strawberry filling and put the cake to stand up vertically and then it started to lean forward.

I tried to put dowels in it and it stood a little better. I applied my buttercream and the cake was alright but slightly tilled. Fast forward I had to go to a class got home 3 hours later and the cake had felled back. I tried to save it by cutting it and trying to stack it horizontally but it didnât work. I gave up and put the whole thing back in the pan, wrapped it and put it in the freezer. It ruined my weekend. Please tell me what I did wrong.

1. I used a yellow Dunkin Hines cake mixes with cake extender recipe added to it.
Was this type of cake not strong enough to handle sculpturing?

2. I used fruit filling instead of buttercream to try to whole the cake together.
On Ace of Cakes I noticed they always just have buttercream fillings does that make a difference?

3. Why does the cake lean forward when I put it to stand?


Thank you for reading and all advice is greatly appreciated.

you cut the cake in half like you would normally for a cake that wasn't standing up?? and then stood it up?? Just making sure I'm picturing it correctly. I think you need to slice it to the cake shape......stand it up and then cut horizontally and add the filling!

I haven't done a purse cake, yet. But I did do a tall diaper bag. It was a sheet cake cut into four parts and stacked w/ a cardboard in the middle and dowels underneath and then doweled all the way thru the whole thing. All the layers had buttercream in between.

BUT I did do a train where I built part of it like I'm picturing your purse. It stood fine. I think the problem may have been with your filling. It might have been to slippery to hold itself up. I think w/ buttercream you would have been fine. Oh yeah and both of my cakes were made w/ the same kind of batter you said you used. Hope this helped some and I bet your next purse will be perfect.

Yes, I treated the cake like a regular round sliced in half added the filling and then stood it up. Now that I think about it it never stood up straight but it didn't lean or break till after I filled it.

I am a little confused so I should have stood it up cut it in half add the buttercream and then put a board & dowel?

Thank you both so much for advising.

Thanks Lynda I hope the next purse works too. It was such a great tasting cake. I can't wait to try again this weekend.

Shisharka's description was 1000x better than mine No support needed at all for the purse I only used support in my diaper bag cake that was inordinately tall; so it was like a multi-tiered cake but no difference in layer sizes.

Also, I never never thought of leaving cake and filling on its side to set up first. I love cake central! Thanks Sisharka