every cake i have made has had a bump on the side from the filling i guess. has this happened to anyone else. can you please help me

Are you damming the layers before you fill them? The icing dam will help to prevent the filling from bulging through.

Also allowing your filled cakes to settle for a while will give you the opportunity to fix the bulges before you do the final coat of icing or fondant. I allow my filled/crumb coated cakes to sit over night with a book on top. The weight of the book helps to settle the cake.

HTH

dkelly- Doesn't the cake dry out from only being crumbcoated overnight or do you keep it covered? Thanks.

The crumbcoating seals the cake.

I torte, dam, fill, wrap in plastic and then put a ceramic tile on top of the cake and let it sit for at least 2 hours, and 3-4 is even better. The tile neds to be al least as big as the diameter of the cake.

or one can use a large cookie sheet and just press down on the them until the icing dam starts to peek out the edges -- said dam having been place at least 1/2 inch from edge and made of stiff icing. -- works faster than book or tile (leahs and indydebi) method for the impatient among us

depending upon weight of tile or book, that method can work in as little as 2 hours.

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crumbcoating works to seal in moisture as well as crumbs.

Wow! I've never heard of doing that! Thanks for the info.