Ok, so every cake i do has bulging where the two halves meet. on most of my cakes its nearly invisable as the cakes are covered in dots, flowers, etc but i have a wedding cake coming up in August and now its getting closer and closer and i still am having bulges no matter how smooth my crumb coat is and how thick my fondant is. the wedding cake is plain cream fondant with sunflowers and ivy on the top and sitting on the tiers but a lot of the cake will be visable and the customers are quite .... i dont know, i just really need it to be perfect. any tips would be much appreciated. wish my first wedding cake was for a polka dot or tiny flower covered one!!

The sides do seem smooth when they are crumb coated but maybe do i need to trim them before crumb coating???

Thanks in advance!

I used to get these same annoying bulges! The best way to get rid of them it seems, it so let your cake sit over-night filled and crumb coated. (Or at least as long as possible.) Next day, buttercream and fondant cover. And don't overfill with buttercream... Good luck! And thanks to the posters on this website who gave me these ideas!!!

I would stack and crumbcoat the whole cake a day or so before you do the final coat of icing and the decorations.This gives the cake time to settle and allow any bulging of filling if there is going to be any.The next day go back and scrape the sides down to get rid of any excess.It also helps to keep the cake COLD and refridgerated.Once the cake is done refridgerate again...It is a process..If you try and bake,stack,ice and decorate a stacked or any other type of filled wedding cake in one day the chances of bulging are very high..I do it over a course or 2 days!It helps alot!!

Definitely let your cakes settle after you have filled them (overnight if possible). Most if not all the settling will occur during this time. You can then "trim" any bulges before you ice and or cover with fondant.

I would highly recommend that you get Sugarshack's dvds. She goes thru this process in her video.

Here's a link to Sharon's site:

www.sugaredproductions.com

Good Luck!

agree with xstitcher, follow sugarshacks DVD and you won't have bulges

i agree, definately get sugarshack's perfecting the art of buttercream and successful stacking dvd's.

Don't know if you use a stiff dam of BC but that is recommended to help with bulging issues. I've also heard of people spackling their cakes before crumb coating using a mixture of cake crumbs and thick BC but not sure the exact amount of each. I haven't done this myself but the damming does help.

HTH.

I too have suffered the battle of the bulges....It's a shame cause one of my favorite cakes that I did turned out sooo cute, but the bulges happened overnight after I had done the cake. A couple of things that I do that can help....

1. Do not try to bake, fill, crumb coat, and fondant all in one day....Its just a bad idea...

2. I bake, let the layers cool, wrap in plastic wrap, and store in the fridge at least overnight.

3. I uncover, trim the edges until they are completely smooth, and fill. Make sure that you are damming with a STIFF BC if you are using a less than stiff filling i.e. a jelly-like filling.

4. Crumb coat and stick that sucker back in the fridge overnight. Remove EARLY the next morning and let it completely come up to room temp before even considering covering with fondant.

A couple of things that make bulging worse...

1. Not damming your fillings!!! When in doubt just use a dam anyways, it wont hurt a thing.

2. Wilton pans! Sounds weird doesnt it? The pans are cheap and dont have straight sides compared to a Magic Line pan. They leave a little lip at the very top that I shave off after the cake has been chilled. Make sure you do that so that your sides are completely straight.

Keep practicing, somethings that other have suggested to me work, and some dont. I just have bad bulgy luck I think....