I've been commissioned to do a cake for my hairdresser's son's 1st birthday. I really wanted to do a topsy turvy cake, as she is young, and pretty hip...and does a great job with my hair, and I need to keep her happy!

She doesn't have any preferences whatsoever, I have carte blanche. I've never done a topsy turvy cake, so I thought I'd practice. Well, when I carved the middle tier, I cut through my icing dam, and into the filling. All was then lost! I tried to finish it, and keep it together with buttercream, but the whole thing just toppled!

I guess I'll have to just go with a regular stacked cake, and forget the whimsy , but does anyone have any pointers?? These cakes are much harder than they look!

So sorry to hear of your disaster. I've not tried a TT cake for fear of the same thing happening to me, but I really want to.

Giving you a BUMP.

I haven't done one either...I know they're a fad right now but that was the look I tried to avoid for so many years that I don't want to do it on purpose

I did see a really good tutorial on it, step-by-step with photos http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=71115&pid=969488&st=0entry969488


Anyhow, any tiered fondant cake will wow your hairdresser, and a regular stacked one will be a lot easier to cut and serve. A first birthday is lots of fun, because you can make a little smash cake too.

Well, they are tricky. I have had one collapse, but learned some lessons from there.

The best thing to keep in mind is the center of gravity. No matter how topsy it is, there should be a center point through the cake, where all the centers line up. Does that make sense? I hope I explained that well! Also, for a first time, just make a very gradual "slope" on the tops, nothing to extreme.

And I would not assemble it until you arrive at the venue. It is just less stressful that way.

Good luck!

Thanks for all the replies, I've not been able to get on to this site all day! I think I'll go with a regular tiered for this order, maybe use some squares with circular pans...I'd love to try this again though! I think it would be easier if I had the graduated pans, but mine are all 2 inches apart in size, so I have to carve them...I guess it's all a matter of practise!

Did you have enough support in between the layers. Dowels and sturdy covered cardboard is what I always use to keep from having so much stress on each tier. Also if each tier is going to be 4 inches high remember to put a covered cardboard in between the 2 layers. Sounds like a lot of boards but it will keep things from toppping. Also you'll need to make sure you get as close to the center as possible when carving out the middle.

Hope that helps - good luck

I just made a carved topsy turvy this weekend. It was scary but I got the best response from it! I just made sure that I had a center dowel through all the layers and it stayed put. Honestly is was a lot of fun to make! I have made one with the styrofoam wedges that was a really neat concept as well and easier to make! Can't wait to see what you come up with!
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1229738.html
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1184295.html

when making anything that's carved you shouldn't use a filling...just buttercream...and it should be thinner than you normally do because you are using so many layers of cake to get the effect.

Hope this helps! everyone else's suggestions are correct too!

Wow, Coreenag, those are really great! On your BC one, what sizes did you use? Did you carve your tiers? I think I'm carving them a little too much...

Thanks! The sizes were 12-9-6. I cut the tops at an angle and then replaced them high to high etc. The bottoms were carved. The 12 was 10 on bottom, 9 was 7 and the 6 went to 4.5. HTH!

well...sounds like the sizes were good!

did you do your normal cake or did you add anything to it? like you can add some pudding to your cake to make it more dense...that helps too!

did you take photos?

well...that's good! you should try again!

oh! and I see that coreenag was the one with the great sizes!

Another option you have if you want filling, is to torte the cakes, but not fill them, just stack them with nothing in betweem, then carve. Once they are carved, take the layers apart and fill them.

I carve a lot and I usually use a good amount of some kind of filling - I have had a little trouble with straight jam every once in awhile, but still been able to work with it.

Actually I did as Sweetresults said. I torte, carve and then fill. It makes it much easier and I like there to be filling in my cakes. I used the WASC recipe for this cake so I find that it is a denser cake so that helps when carving as well. step0onmi I posted the link to the cake but I will try to post a pic here as well. Once I cut the top and replaced it I then turned it upside down with a cake board in the correct size and just carved from that. That way you can adjust how much you carve away. (Hope that makes sense!)

really nice cake coreenag! wow! that's really helpful!

There are actual whimsical pans that you can purchase. I bought some at the ICES convention last year from Fiesta. I have a set of 5 pans...they make doing whimsical cakes very easy.

Ok,
I feel like a bit of an idiot! I guess I read the tutorial wrong, cause I didn't notice the carve first fill later part! OOPS! Thanks again for all the help, and nia524, I'm going to check out those pans!

You guys rock!, as always!!

I've heard that the whimsy pans are a lot of trouble...actually, I think there is a thread you should find before purchasing them.

I can't seem to find them on the internet, I think if I use BC , or carve & then fill, it should work out much better...I'll try to find that thread though, I'm interested in seeing what they look like!

http://www.cakecentral.com/article1-Instructions-For-Building-A-Whimsical-Tilted-Cake.html

easier..."crooked" cake instructions
http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-582924-whimsical.html

Nice cake coreenag!