I feel like such a fool - here I am all inspired to decorate my husbands 50th birthday cake and ALL the cakes I have made are flopping. I am hoping it is just the calibration of my oven (service call) but I have tried numerous recipes and the cake it either too dry or not cooked through the centre. Today was the final straw and I think I am going to just go to the local bakery and order the cake - guess its a safer bet.
Anyone out there experience anything like this. Can I really be the only one?

I always bake with bake even strips around the outside and a flower nail in the middle of any cake larger than 8 inches. No more dried out edges or soggy middles. Everything bakes evenly. HTH

Hard to bake cakes if your thermostat is on the fritz.

Everything you need to know to make, decorate and assemble tiered/stacked/layer cakes:

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-605188.html

Above super thread has popular CC recipes for crusting American buttercreams, several types of fondant and doctored cake mix (WASC and other flavors) - and so much more!

HTH

are you scratch or box mix baker?