Help! I have done this cake twice now and begining to wonder if I am going to have to call this lady and tell her I can't do it! Anyways I am doing a mad hatter cake for alice in wonderland theme and I have done it before but I don't know what I am doing wrong this time. When I stack the cake putting white chocolate icing and raspberry filling inbetween layers it starts to fall over and the sides start to cave in. I am starting to think my cake is too moist or because of the filling. Help what am I doing wrong?? Thanks!
liz
www.denasdelights.com

Which method are you using? The carved optical illusion one or the Styrofoam wedges one? When I've done one I use the optical illusion style, carve and fill semi frozen let come to room temp then crumb coat, chill for a few min in the fridge then cover in fondant then stack and decorate and I haven't had a disaster yet (knock on wood)....

the optical illusion one. I have not tried the styrofoam one, how do you do it? thanks!

I'm not sure how to do the Styrofoam method here's a good tutorial on the other one:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHY_F53ClJ8 hope this helps!

the styrofoam one is where you don't carve the cake, you put stryofoam wedged between the tiers.... like this one....

Can you take a pic of the cake? Maybe seeing it will help us figure out what is going wrong.

Can you tell us what sizes are the cakes? Sometimes if they are too close in size your dowels are too close to the edge and weakens it, especially in a tapered topsy turvy. I have had the best luck with tapered topsy turvys with at least a 3" difference, for example a 9" & 6" cake (I bake a 10", 9", and 8" for the bottom layer, and a 7", 6", 5" for the top) - I use the middle layer as the size reference. So the bottom of the top tier is 5" and I carve the hole out of the top of the bottom tier, which is a 10" so there is actually a 2.5" border around the bottom of the top tier. If you only have an 1" or so around the top tier's base I think that might be contributing to your problem.

Other things to look at - I strongly recommend using ganache for tt cakes - fantastic and holds everything together or if using bc chill it, chill it, chill it!

Best wishes, these cakes can be exasperating, I know. And, a really moist cake is also not the way to go - I add white or dark chocolate to my cake batter for topsy turvys - this makes for a firm, poundcake like texture at room temp, but because of the cocoa butter in the chocolate, it melts in your mouth. The Aussies only use very dense mud cake and ganache and they are fantastic at this style of cake (as well as many others), follow their lead.

Thanks for all ya'lls help! that Styrofoam method cake is really cute. I finally got it to work. I freeze my cakes after I ice them and trim off the edges while they were cold and it worked great! then I covered them in fondant and placed in fridge. And then decorated. Now my problem is this lady that wants the cake call friday and stated that she wasn't having the party Sunday due to stomach flu and if I could save the cake for the following Sunday or could I just make another one?@## I'm like if you only knew how much trouble it took me to make this one! Anyways long story short Will this cake still good for the following Sunday if I keep it in the fridge Wrapped up or will I have to make another one? (Please tell me it will still be good???)
Thanks!
liz

If it were me, and I have done this as a business, I would charge her for another cake and make her take this one now. You can't give someone a week old cake - not once it's decorated, etc. It would've been different if you just baked and froze the layers.

How much notice did she give you when she canceled? Less than 2 days = no refund on my policies sheet.

HTH

Yes totally agree. She called me Friday and it was due for Sunday. Yes I am probably going to let her know that she will have to pay for another cake plus this one.
Thanks!
liz

I don't do fondant cakes but I saw a thread about freezing fondant covered cakes you might be interested in...

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopicp-6710909.html