I am going to make 3 tier cake, all Cream cheese filling and icing. Should I do the "ring" of Buttercream around the filling to prevent bulging? I don't want the buttercream hit the taste of cream cheese in my cake, and the cream cheese is not stiff enough for the ring, even if I use crusted cream cheese. I would rather have mixed taste than bulging cake. Any suggestions?

I would definitely do a ring of buttercream. I forgot to do that with a cake I did with strawberry filling and it didn't just bulge. When I went to ice it the strawberry mixed in with the buttercream making it red.

Definitely need a dam!!!!! The buttercream is not going to take away from the taste of the cream cheese.

You could use the crusting cream cheese buttercream icing recipe here on this website. Its really good. Stiffin it with a lot of powdered sugar to pipe your ring.

sorry to take over but what is a ring?

(the ring of icing around the cake that makes the dam)

Can you just add more p/s to the cream cheese frosting you are using to make it stiffer for the dam?

When you are torting and filling a cake or just filling layers, Before you put any filling in the cake(fruit, jam etc.), you put a solid piping of frosting around the top of the layer to hold in or dam the filling. When you put the next layer on, the loose filling will naturally want to squeeze out he sides. This technique prevents that. Experience tells you how dense that frosting dam needs to be, but it should be thick.

I could try to use more sugar to make it stiffer...will see, but the cream cheese doesn't crust as nice as buttercream (??)

What cream cheese recipe do you use?

I wouldn't think the fact that the icing is "crusting" would really make a difference. "Crusting" is not going to provide support--it's stiffness. I do not know cream cheese icing at all, but I would think if you added a lot of p.s. and maybe even cream of tartar (or Just Whites), it would be plenty stiff to serve as a dam.

GL!

I agree with ltr - it doesn't need to crust, you just need it STIFF. Adding more p/s will do the trick, I am sure.

I can't remember where I read it. In a book or on here? But someone was taking their frosting and mixing it with cake crumbs to make a really solid ring. Like a ring of cake ball, if you will.

So maybe mix your cream cheese filling with cake crumbs and then pipe out in a wide ring? Bonus of more cake and more cream cheese!

i almost exclusively use cream cheese icing, and i don't really recommend using the spackling. i've tried it the last two times, and the moistness of the cake pulls out the liquid in the cream cheese, so it ends up being quite oily...the opposite of what you are trying to achieve.

i just try to make a small batch that is MUCH stiffer to use as my dam.

good help here. Thank you!!

If I am using IMBC do I need to make the dam/ring from a buttercream that is a powdered sugar base buttercream, or is there a way I can thicken/stiffen the IMBC to make the dam?! I've had some serious buldging lately and put a dam of IMBC, but it's not stiff enough I guess!? HELP!