i am carving a cake that needs no be four cakes tall do i need to put a cardboard cake board in the middle or do i just stack the four cakes on top of each other and start carving? and if i do need a cake board do i carve the cake with the board in the center? do i need to put any dowels in the cakes for support or should it be ok with out them?

Thanks in advance.......

any one???

I would put a board in the middle of the four layers. I would also dowel. I don't know about doweling down the center...what are you carving?

To carve, stack all the cakes without icing or dowels, carve, take it apart, ice or fill, dowel, re-stack, and then let it set up in the fridge so it can settle. Then do your icing and fondant like you normally would.

I hope this makes sense. I have had a couple 3d cakes fallbecause I didn't properly support it. In my photos, Elmo's head fell right off his body and landed on the floor. I had to re-do it in styrofoam and take money off the price of the cake. GGGRRR>

i am carving a motercycle helmet.
so to make sure i am understanding this right stack and carve all the cakes first take them apart fill the bottem two layers dowel them cut a cake board to size and than stack and fill the other two cakes and than ice and fondant like i normally would...

Right.

The reason that you do that is so that your filling isn't release by trimming the cake. This way, you know exactly where your cake is going to end up. Just be sure to fit it together the same way. Also, then you aren't trying to cut through a peice of cardboard while you are cutting the cake.

Last, If you put the cakes in the freezer for about 10 minutes, they will cut cleaner for you, and make less of a mess.

I always save the scraps I cut off to make cake spackle in case of emergency.

thanks so much....one more silly question whan i put the cake board in the center should i ice the top of the cake that it is giong to sitting on or do i leave the iceing out thanks again...

I would not ice that part unless you are going to protect the board from absorbing all the grease from the icing.

On a side note, I was looking at your photos, and I have a girly goth cake very very similar to yours. Check it out. It looks like we used the same invitation for the party! How funny.

yep thats the one i used , that is funny. yours is really cute i like how you did the whole top teir as the skull