I am making a piano cake for a party tomorrow and, of course, I just started it this evening. It is my first attempt at a carved cake because it is curving on top and sides. I used a white/chocolate marble cake with a chocolate buttercream. Originally, I was going to use cookies iced in black and white for the keys atop and three cookie recipes later, I decided to use fondant because they weren't fitting right and were breaking.
Here's the problem:
The cake is super crumbly and is literally falling apart. I got the crumb coat on it and it is lumpy, crumby and UGLY. I have a few hours to decide if I am going to continue with the buttercream or try to put some fondant on it. I am worried that there will be too much icing if I use buttercream since it will have to be really thick to cover the uglies. And fondant is not going to come out smooth and I don't have time to let it rest.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. It is for a dear friend and I don't want to show up with a Publix cake
Thanks!

Try popping it in the freezer for 30 minutes or an hour. You can work on the keys while it's in there.
For future reference, I always freeze cakes that are going to be hand carved at least overnight to firm them up. Works great, and you don't get all the crumbs. Hope this helps, and good luck!

I would do the same as pipe-dreams, put the cake in the freezer for as long as you can.

I had read the same advice before. I am going to attempt my first carved cake this weekend. I will be freezing the cake overnight.

I would not try carving a cake without freezing it for a bit....but I don't like it froze hard, then its a bit harder to carve I find....when its chilled real well its perfect.

What recipe did you use? If you are going to carve a cake you need to use the Sourcream Almond white wedding cake recipe. This is a denser and moister cake that won't crumble during carving.

If it's not too late, I recommend you make that and start over. There's nothing worse than a crumbly cake to make your decorating a nightmare.

If you'd like my recipe, just send me a PM and I'll gladly help you out!

Lisa

I used the cake extender recipe found in here with a yellow cake and its amazingly moist, and when put in freezer before hand it made the carving a breeze..........of course the fondant was another story lol

Thank you for all your advise!!!! The CC community is wonderful. It turned out wonderfully after a lot of stress. A couple people did not believe that I made it and one person told me that it was the best cake she ever ate (it was a basic white cake marbled with melted chocolate). Here is the outcome:

what is a cake extender

cake extender, is a recipe that you add to a cake mix(box) and if you look at one of my earlier posts in here it has the link for the recipe.