Hi everyone! I'm making my Dad's bd cake for this weekend, and being a newbie, find myself perplexed. One part of the cake will be a little cottage-type house. I'm using the awesome (it IS awesome, btw!) tomato sauce spice cake recipe I found here, and it's heavy and dense. Either way I go I will be carving the cake, but I'm wondering if I should stack the cake in several layers (horizontal), or cut it in half and bring the two halves together (vertical) like the purse cakes? If I do it that way, how do they stay together? Does the BC "glue" it together well enough that it won't fall apart?

This won't be a very big cottage; it's only one part of the cake; maybe 8"x8". My problem is, if I go horizontal I will have to stack and dowel in the middle of the cottage, and I'm so afraid of using dowels!!! However, I will do whatever I have to to ensure the stability of the cake, I just didn't know which would be best. Thank you in advance for any help or suggestions!

I'm having trouble visualizing this..Why would you have to dowel the cottage, will another cake be on top of it? If it's stacked with something on top of it, you'll have to dowel the vertical version too, and I'd think that would be less stable if you do it that way. If the cottage is on the top and nothing will be on top of it, you shouldn't have to dowel it at all. If it's a square cottage, you could also use square pans...

Can you describe the entire setup a little more? We might be able to give you a better answer if the arrangement is easier to visualize.

Sorry! Nothing will be stacked on top of the cottage, but it will be approx. 8" high also; I thought if your layers were higher than 4" you should use another support and dowel in between each 4" section? Am I wrong? I may be completely wording this wrong, and if so I do apologize! It seems like the horizontal way would be best, but I can't imagine not having problems with a cake stacked at least 8" high and no supports? Also, I'm debating about covering this in fondant vs. bc, but at the very least the roof will be fondant, which will add to it's weight. On such a small cake, am I worrying myself sick over nothing??!

Hmmmm.......a thought just hit me.....maybe I should just make the cottage out of RKT and the rest of the cake spice! That would solve all my worries! But.....I still need to learn how to do things the proper way, not just find a neat little fix to get out of it!

Okay, that makes sense. You're right, if the cake is 8" tall, you should do 4" of cake, supports in that, and a board under the top 4" of the next section, which would then sit on the dowels. That's assuming that you're stacking the layers horizontally. I assume that you were thinking of sticking a bunch of 8" squares together vertically so that you could avoid the dowelling, but sticking a bunch of layers together vertically will be way less stable.

Another way to do it would be to do 4" of Rice Krispie treats and 4" of cake on top of that. It would avoid having too much cake if you don't need that much, and you wouldn't need to dowel anything. But you should learn to use dowels eventually!

......big sigh......I guess I'm going to have to dowel.....but I'm going to cheat and not put the cake together until right before the party, just in case I have any issues! And if this week is any kind of indication there WILL be issues! Thanks for helping Costumeczar