I am planning on making my first topsy-turvy cake. I usually use cake mix for my cakes because most of my customers request it (go figure). However i heard that boxed cake mix is to fluffy and unstable for a topsy-turvy cake. Does anyone have a good basic cake recipe that is completely reliable and stable? oh, and tasty!

Box mixes can be altered to make the product a bit more sturdy. Check the recipe area in the cake mix recipe topic.

WASC (white almond sour cream) is a popular doctored box recipe around here, and I've also seen one in the recipes section for 3D chocolate cake or something to that effect. You can search the forums using the words "carving" and "recipe" (choose "find all words") to find lots of good ones.

I use the "cake mix extender" in the recipe section and it makes a dense moist cake that is very carvable. Great for topsy turvy.
Good luck!

This thread has all the extended/enhanced recipes, as well as just about everything that has ever been added to a cake mix:

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-614378-.html

HTH

Thanks everyone! muchly appreciated.