OK, I am making a 3D Razorback next week. The head will be cake baked in a mixing bowl. Then I'm going to set it on it's side and cut some off the bottom so it is stable. The snout will be baked in a couple of ramekins placed together.

I am going ot use the thick caramel sauce/filling from recipe section for the filling.

So, do I tort them as they will be sitting on the board? Or can I tort them so that the filling would/layers would be running vertical? It would be easier to tort and fill that way, and I pklan to serve the cake that way, but not sure if all of my filling will settle...

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Personally, with such a complex design, I wouldn't tort at all.

But if you have to...definitely make sure it's horizontal, not vertical.
Be sure to put the "dam" around the outside to hold the filling in.

Hope this helps.

I found an amazing picture of a razorback cake on http://jessicalukesmom.blogspot.com/2008/01/razorback-cake.html and I think you can still tort and fill the cakes the normal way (ie horizontally) and simply freeze them for a bit before carving, assembling and covering.

IMO vertical is asking for trouble. I would torte and fill horizonally so the layers wont slide apart.

What about taking the tip used for filling a cupcake and just randomly putting some filling in after you have it all assembled?

One CCer (I don't recall who though) stated that he/she split the layers...without filling yet...stacked...without filling yet...carved...then, dammed and filled the layers...putting them together in order...crumb coated and allowed it to settle...trimmed it just a bit after it settled. If the height of the piece was more than the equivalent of two layers, that area was doweled and boarded as if it were regular tiered cake(making sure to trim board(s) along with rest of cake.

He/she then continued to decorate the cake. The reason they gave for doing it this way instead of filling then carving was so that the filling would ooze out. If I can recall the thread, I'll make sure to post a link.

http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-597100-filling.html+shaped

Wow sounds like a really cool cake. Here's an idea if you are still hesitant about torting (I agree with the previous poster about vertical torting asking for trouble) Have bowls of filling by the cake when it is served and can be served over the cut cake like gravy on mashed potatoes.

Jibbies

Darn. My good sense was saying to tort horizontal or not at all, but that's not what I WANTED to do. Thanks all for your input. I've never done a carved cake before... I'm thinking that once this is all baked, it won't actually be much carving though. I have a 7" round with a pyrex bowl for the body, then a pyrex bowl on it's side for the head and the 2 ramekins on their side for the snout. It should MOSTLY be trimming the bottom off the ramekin and bowl for the head, I think. Then ,aking it ll line up.

I am looking forward to this - hope it turns out nearly as good as it looks in my head, LOL!